Intent

At Parkside, our Maths curriculum is designed to nurture and inspire young minds by fostering a deep understanding and love of mathematics. We aim to develop pupils’ fluency, reasoning, and problem-solving skills through a carefully structured approach that builds solid conceptual foundations and promotes mathematical thinking. Using the Herts Essential Maths Scheme, our curriculum ensures that pupils gain mastery by moving systematically through concrete, pictorial, and abstract representations. We are committed to providing all pupils, regardless of their starting points, with scaffolded learning opportunities that challenge and support them to achieve their full potential.

Our intent is to equip pupils with the skills and confidence to apply mathematical knowledge creatively and logically in a variety of contexts, preparing them for future academic success and everyday life.

Maths Curriculum Overview

Implementation

Our Maths curriculum is delivered through a coherent and consistent approach:

1. Herts Essential Maths Scheme: We follow this scheme to ensure progression through concrete resources, pictorial models, and abstract concepts. This progression supports deep understanding and retention.
2. Daily Maths Fluency Sessions: Pupils engage in daily practice to develop automaticity in key number facts and procedures, which underpins their ability to tackle more complex problems.
3. Scaffolded Learning: All lessons are carefully scaffolded to meet the diverse needs of learners, ensuring that every pupil can access the curriculum and make progress.
4. Speaking Frames and Reasoning Opportunities: We incorporate speaking frames regularly to provide pupils with structured opportunities to articulate their mathematical thinking, enhancing their reasoning and communication skills.
5. Live Feedback: Every lesson includes live feedback delivered through adapted dual-coded stickers. These feedback tools encourage pupils to identify patterns, create mathematical stories, and reflect on questions of varying difficulty. This approach promotes mastery by pushing pupils to deepen their understanding and consider ‘next steps’ for greater depth.

Mastery and Mathematical Thinking: Our feedback and teaching strategies foster a growth mindset and encourage pupils to engage in mathematical thinking beyond rote procedures, supporting them to become confident problem solvers.

Impact

The impact of our Maths curriculum is reflected in pupils' growing fluency, confidence, and ability to reason mathematically. Pupils demonstrate increasing competence in applying mathematical concepts across a range of contexts, supported by their solid grasp of number facts and procedures developed through daily fluency sessions.

Live feedback and scaffolded support ensure that pupils make consistent progress, with many achieving mastery and greater depth in their understanding. Pupils are able to explain their mathematical thinking clearly, reason logically, and approach problems creatively.

Ultimately, Parkside pupils leave with a strong foundation in mathematics that equips them for future learning and real-world application, embodying our vision of nurturing and inspiring young minds toward a bright future.