Maths

Maths curriculum Intent 

Mathematics Vision statement​ 

 

Mathematics is universal language.  The aim of the mathematics department is to equip students with the mathematical skills and cultural capital required for the future, irrespective of their starting points and special educational needs. Our intent is to build resilient learners who are confident in applying their knowledge and understanding to a variety of problems. 

Our intent is comprised of the following 3 sections: 

1. Our vision for the maths faculty  

2. Defining what the key concepts and core domains of knowledge that pupils will study during the course of their education 

3. The end points of our curriculum at the end of each year 

 

1. Our Vision 

In order to achieve our Curriculum Intent, we have designed our curriculum around the following Principles of design:  

• Aspiration – Mathematics provides an effective way of building mental discipline and encourages logical reasoning. Mathematical knowledge also plays an important part in understanding the contents of other subjects such as science, social studies, and even music and art.  

The mathematics department embeds termly careers lessons into the main curriculum to provide a broader experience of maths in the working, and everyday, world. Higher ability students have the opportunity to enter into the UKMT (United Kingdom Mathematics Trust) maths challenges. 

We have high expectations of our students and understand that we need to adapt our teaching to meet the needs of all students. At KS4, we have introduced GCSE Statistics which is taught alongside GCSE mathematics, enabling students to gain an extra qualification.  

 

• Core knowledge – our department follows the national curriculum and is tiered in KS4 (Years 10-11) We ensure that students are entered in the correct tier so they can at least achieve their targets.  Throughout their time at KSA, students are taught how to use and apply number facts, to manipulate algebra and solve algebraic equations, statistics and probability  to present and process data, to work out probability and to apply geometric facts. Our students are also expected to be able to apply their understanding (with support when required) of each of the strands to problem-solving questions. 

 

• Procedural/Powerful knowledge –  Maths is a series of underpinning skills, which when built upon, can create rich problem solving and reasoning questions that require deep thinking. This encourages students to think independently and to solve problems and puzzles. These are skills that are needed in a range of situations throughout life, both in the workplace and daily living e.g. budgeting, finding the right internet/TV package & deciding on the best loan/mortgage deal.  We encourage students to read and understand what they have been asked to work out & to use an effective method to solve problems. 

 

• Developing cultural capital – our more able mathematicians are entered in the Junior, Senior and other maths challenges every year.  The maths department create termly careers lessons for each year group to help students gain an understanding of maths in different employment areas. This gives students an opportunity to see how maths is used everywhere; to inspire students to want to do well in maths and see the relevance of the subject in the wider world. 

 

• Developing character – enabling our students to RISE. In particular developing our Core Values of: 

• Respect – mutual respect is encouraged in all maths lessons this requires everyone to be quiet and listening when a teacher is explaining and modelling the work & when a student is contributing to the lesson. We use a ‘hands up’ approach when students have questions about the work & most of them know to wait until the teacher allows them to speak. 

 

• Independence – within maths lessons, there is always an opportunity to attempt tasks independently. More able within groups are given more challenging work to stretch them. Very often, these tasks require deep thinking and application of key skills to more complex problems independently. In addition, students are set independent learning tasks to be done outside timetabled lessons to consolidate their understanding & to challenge their thinking. This helps create discipline and time management among other things. 

 

• Service – our aim is to build resilient learners who will be able to use their skills in everyday life. Supporting the students from Corby to become better mathematicians will help them leave KSA with a good set of results which will improve their life chances. It is common practice for maths teachers to offer after school learning and revision sessions in order to support students to achieve their targets and beyond. These sessions encourage and develop a range of skills necessary to sit  GCSE/A level exams with confidence.   

 

• Empathy – Students are treated with empathy and are encouraged to show empathy to other students and all staff in the academy, irrespective of their rank. Students that need extra help are given opportunities and encouragement to reach their aspirations. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are given support to achieve and be successful e.g. by providing specialist equipment and ‘free’ tutoring’. 

 

• Identifying and addressing context specific need – our pupils are valued members of our community and they come with specific contextual needs. Our curriculum caters for and differentiates for all students, irrespective of their starting points. The mathematics faculty helps them to develop their ability to use mathematics in a range of topic areas and where necessary, specialist equipment is provided & funding is used to ensure that the gaps between disadvantaged students & their peers is as narrow as possible. 

 

• Learning is sequential – In maths, we follow a spiral curriculum which builds upon previous learning with interleaving, revision, deepening understanding of topics & regularly narrowing/closing gaps in learning. This allows students the opportunity to develop their ability in maths and to tackle more complex topics and questions as they grow from KS3 to KS4  & for some KS5. 

 

2. Our key concepts and core domain of knowledge.  

At KS3, our aim is to build upon and extend the mathematics that students have already learnt at KS2 in years 7 to 9. We have been following the White Rose curriculum model since September 2021. The key concepts and core domains of knowledge in Year 7 are algebraic thinking, place value & proportion, applications of number, directed number and fractional thinking, lines & angles & reasoning with number. In Year 8, students are taught how to work with proportional reasoning, representations, algebraic techniques, developing number, developing geometry & reasoning with data. In Year 9, students are taught straight line graphs and equation of a line, forming and solving equations, Pythagoras’ theorem, enlargement and similarity, further problems involving ratios and proportions, Rate, probability, algebraic representation and how to make simple deductions in maths. 

At KS4, we set students by tier with the more able following the higher curriculum and everyone else following the foundation curriculum.  Our key concepts and core domains of knowledge are: 

• Foundation tier students learn and use mathematical language and properties confidently at a level appropriate for their ability. They consolidate their understanding of the 5 main strands: Number, ratio & proportion, Algebra, Statistics & Probability. Those that reach a good level of understanding of Statistics will be entered into an additional qualification (GCSE Statistics). 

• Higher tier students, particularly those in top sets, develop problem solving and reasoning strategies that help them solve harder problems.  They are able to select and use appropriate calculation strategies to solve increasingly complex problems both with and without a calculator. They are confident on all areas of mathematics including circle theorem and algebraic and geometric proofs. Our expectation is that most of the higher tier students will be entered into the GCSE higher Statistics exams, hence gaining a further qualification. 

• At KS5, Pupils are expected to push their knowledge, understanding and mathematical skills further into the areas of mathematical proofs and calculations. They study both Pure and Applied mathematics (Statistics & Mechanics). We also have the capacity to offer further maths to our most able students 

 

3. The endpoints of our curriculum 

Our learners will be taught to: 

 Use and apply standard techniques  

• accurately recall facts, terminology and definitions 

• use and interpret notation correctly 

• accurately carry out routine procedures or set tasks requiring multi-step solutions. 

Reason, interpret and communicate mathematically  

• make deductions, inferences and draw conclusions from mathematical information  

• construct chains of reasoning to achieve a given result  

• interpret and communicate information accurately  

• present arguments and proofs  

• assess the validity of an argument and critically evaluate a given way of presenting information.  

 

Solve problems within mathematics and in other contexts  

• translate problems in mathematical or non-mathematical contexts into a process or a series of mathematical processes  

• make and use connections between different parts of mathematics  

• interpret results in the context of the given problem  

• evaluate methods used and results obtained  

• evaluate solutions to identify how they may have been affected by assumptions made.