Ormiston Cliff Park Infant Academy follows the National Curriculum to teach Mathematics.

National Curriculum programmes of study: Mathematics (Key Stages 1 and 2)

We have daily maths sessions as well as afternoon maths “meetings” in class that allow us to apply skills, develop problem solving and improve rapid recall of number facts.

Our approach to maths is based on the CPA model.

• C stands for concrete – having the opportunity to use practical equipment and resources such as Numicon, bead strings, digit cards etc. in order to develop their understanding.
• P stands for pictorial – the demonstration of the link between the practical and a recorded method such as number lines, formal calculation methods etc.
• A stands for abstract – where children are able to apply their knowledge in a range of different ways.

Three key elements of our maths curriculum are:

• Fluency – where children become fluent in the different aspects of mathematics, including the varied and regular practice of increasingly complex problems over time so that pupils develop and are able to make links in their understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.
• Reasoning – by following a line of enquiry, understanding relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language. This helps to develop children’s ‘maths talk’.
• Problem solving – by applying their mathematics to a variety of problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler step as and persevering in seeking solutions. This also includes the ability to apply a range of strategies in order to test and check their results.

Our Year 2 children have access to the Times Tables Rockstars programme. In either paper form or online, Times Tables Rock Stars is a carefully sequenced programme of daily times tables practice. Each week concentrates on a different times table, with a recommended consolidation week for rehearsing the tables that have recently been practised every third week or so. This format has very successfully boosted times tables recall speed for hundreds of thousands of pupils over the last 8 years in over 14,000 schools – both primary and secondary – worldwide.