How can Chartwell Primary Maths help with curriculum planning?

Successful schools are those that take what works best for them and adapt published materials to suit their needs. Many school are also developing a more creative curriculum and more mathematics is being taught in a cross curricular approach.

Schools vary in their approaches to planning and resources they use to support their staff in the planning process. Many schools are still using the Block and Units set out in the National Numeracy Strategy and incorporate a variety of other published materials into their planning.

We can support your school in the development of effective planning at all levels, ensuring that there is coverage, continuity and progression in expectations. We either develop the approach your school is already using or revisit the process of planning from the ground up.

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How important is assessment in raising standards and increasing confidence?

Evidence demonstrates a clear link between good assessment for learning and raising standards, and an increase in children's confidence.

Our bespoke courses typically cover:

• Effective questioning
• Effective marking and feedback strategies
• Target setting
• Self-evaluation

We have had considerable experience introducing and supporting Assessing Pupil Progress (APP) in schools. Many of the schools we have worked with have adapted the principles and materials to their own requirements and have found them both supportive in assessment and in planning next steps in the mathematics curriculum.

Moderation is a key aspect of developing successful assessment for learning across the school. We can support your school in organising effective moderation both within and across age groups and phases through working with individual and groups of teachers

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What is the role of the Subject Leader?

The role of mathematical subject leader has developed and more is required of the post holder to successfully fulfill the role and to ensure that mathematical standards in learning and teaching continue to rise across a school.

We can work with your maths subject leader to:

• Develop the profile of his or her role across the school
• Support them in auditing the ways in which they lead and manage the subject
• Formulate effective action plans that tie in with the school development pla
• Develop a monitoring cycle including observations, auditing books and planning
• Analyse data effectively
• Prepare for inspection

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How can we adapt our approaches to teaching to suit different teaching contexts?

Effective quality first teaching is the most important aspect in ensuring that children make good progress and attain well in mathematics.

Fit-for-purpose pedagogy involves the teacher in planning how best to construct a blend of teaching approaches that are selected and designed to match the intended learning outcomes and needs whilst taking into account the context and organisation of the children.

We work with your staff either as a whole school or individually. Together, we examine a range of pedagogical approaches and model how these are used in the classroom to maximum effect.

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How can speaking and listening help with maths?

Speaking and Listening has been identified as a key area that has an impact on children's success as learners. Successful teaching and learning is a dialogic process where a teacher is able to use questioning effectively to promote learning. Talk is important for a variety of reasons:

By speaking, children can:

• Consolidate their thinking
• Gain a better understanding of a concept
• Make connections between different areas of learning
• Reflect on their work
• Spot errors in their work
• Learn to be clear and convincing

By listening, children can:

• Learn from others
• See a problem from a different perspective
• Become aware of other strategies
• See different representations of a problem
• Become a critical thinker
• Learn more mathematical vocabulary

By listening to children, teachers can:

• Make assessments about what children know or understand
• Identify difficulties and misconceptions
• Decide on the next steps for a child

We work with your staff to develop talk for learning across the school or with individual teachers. This could either be approached through whole school INSET or team teaching with individual teachers looking at planning explicitly for talk in the classroom.

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What happens at the transitions between Key Stages?

There are three points of transition that a child will go through during their primary education:

• Foundation stage to KS1
• KS1 to KS2
• KS2 to KS3 (secondary education)

At each point there are specific issues that ensure that the transition does not affect the child's attainment, progress and learning.

Our courses focus on specific strategies that teachers can employ in the classroom and as a whole school to ensure the transition process is smooth and supports the child in moving from one phase to the next.

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What are the tools and methods available to Teaching Assistants?

In these sessions we look at the key roles of a teaching assistant in the different parts of the maths lesson.

We consider the resources and games that a TA could use or make and suggest a bank of resources that each TA could have access to.

We examine the progression of calculation in the curriculum from R to Y6, the strategies children need to learn and how they can be supported, always looking at the ways a TA can model and demonstrate approaches to calculation clearly and effectively.

We also examine the importance of effective questioning, identifying misconceptions, appropriate vocabulary and encouraging all children to take part confidently in the maths lesson.

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How can we help parents support their children's learning?

A child's education can be seen as a partnership between the school and the child's parents.

It has regularly been demonstrated that a child's success at school can be greatly increased by the parents' active engagement in his or her learning.

We can tailor courses directly to suit your particular school's requirements. This may be through

• Working with parents to look at ways that they can support their child's learning in mathematics at home e.g. cooking, problem solving
• The use of games to support mathematical learning
• Stages and phases in mental and written calculation

For many parents, maths is an area where they lack confidence in supporting their child. Providing them with some support would impact greatly on attainment.

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