Stoke Park Maths Provision

At Stoke Park Infant School we follow the New Framework for Early Years in Year R and the Hampshire Maths Planning Strategy (HMPS) in Key Stage 1 (years 1 and 2). The HMPS is a ‘spiral’ curriculum, which means that key concepts and skills are revisited on a regular basis to enable all children to work towards mastering them. Our maths provision meets the requirements of the National Curriculum and promotes a mastery approach.

What does Mastery mean?

When a child has mastered a mathematical idea then they will be able to;

• Describe it in their own words
• Represent it in different ways
• Explain it to someone else
• Make up some of their own examples
• See connections with other facts and ideas
• Recognise it in new situations

In Year R, key first maths concepts are explored through both structured sessions and guided play, using a variety of everyday objects and equipment as well as early mark-making. This provides the children with firm foundations and readiness for Key Stage 1.

In Key Stage 1, maths is planned around units of work which cover key concepts across a number of lessons - typically around 15 lessons for each unit. We use problems as a starting point and focussed context around which the skills are developed. The problems are adapted to allow children with special needs to follow the same objectives at a level appropriate to their stage of development, and to allow children who are further developed to be challenged in order to broaden and deepen their understanding.

A key part of the Stoke Park pedagogy (the methods we use for teaching) links to the ‘6 strands for learning.’ This is all about helping children to store their new skills into their long term memory so that they can use them as they grow and continue to learn. The 6 strands are:

• Using concrete examples
• Interleaving
• Spacing
• Dual-coding
• Retrieval and practise
• Elaboration

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Maths at Stoke Park is dynamic and exciting and the children are proud to talk about their work, their thinking and their successes!