Our approach to Mathematics at Blackhorse...

The Intent of Our Maths Curriculum:

Mathematics is imperative for everyday life.  At Blackhorse Primary School, our Mathematics curriculum embodies our mission of creating champion learners by nurturing children to be fluent with key concepts, equipping them for future challenges. Ultimately, we focus on providing children with the foundation and building blocks in order to achieve during their next steps in education. 

We embrace purposeful practice and personal effort by identifying the essential knowledge students require for success and construct our lessons around this fundamental understanding. Our lesson structure is meticulously designed to activate prior knowledge, followed by expert tuition during modelling and explicit teaching of concepts before scaffolding practice and facilitating independent opportunities. 

We are committed to pursuing excellence through high expectations for all learners in terms of engagement and attainment. Engagement is fostered through our active participation protocols, while achievement is closely monitored via frequent marking and feedback opportunities. We aim for our children to develop a solid grasp of fundamental arithmetic strategies, number facts, and mathematical vocabulary through a structured approach. 

We encourage children to apply their knowledge in diverse contexts and make connections among various mathematical concepts. Our learners are challenged to be resilient and reflective, engaging in high-quality maths talks, which are anchored by appropriate mathematical vocabulary. This process allows them to extend their higher-order thinking skills by reasoning with their acquired knowledge and articulating explanations that support their understanding. 

Furthermore, we provide our children with extensive opportunities to purposfully practice their through taking advantage of national competitions, parent helpers, online application and early morning groups.  

Implementation (What we are focusing on improving the most this year): 

At Blackhorse, we have worked hard over the past five years to develop children's reasoning skills. So far, we have developed a bespoke reasoning toolkit, which is used to structure children's thinking around reasoning questions. Following on from this, we developed sentence stems and vocabulary banks, to support children's language within Maths lessons. Finally, more recently, we began using flashcards to revisit and reactivate prior learning. 

Impact (How we know we have been successful):

We know that our mathematics strategy at Blackhorse Primary School is having a sustained and positive impact on pupil outcomes.

Since implementation, our average scaled score has increased from 104 to 107.5, demonstrating clear improvement in pupils’ overall attainment. This progress is mirrored across both key components of mathematics: average reasoning scores have risen from 45 to 51, and average arithmetic scores have improved from 30 to 35.3. These outcomes reflect the success of our consistent, research-informed approach, which emphasises purposeful  practice, teacher modelling, and the development of factual fluency before reasoning and problem-solving.

Since implementation, the number of children with SEND achieving the expected standard in Maths has over doubled from 25% to 57% (national average 40%) and the number of pupil premium children achieving the standard has gone from 57% to 70% (national average 61%).

A fluent mathematician can:

1. recall key number facts (times tables & number bonds) instantly, including inverse facts.
2. use the four number operations accurately and effectively.
3. understand the number system, particularly place value and fractions, decimals & percentages.

A mathematician who reasons can: 

1. Work systematically to solve number problems.
2. Work logically.
3. Spot mathematical patterns.
4. Visualise mathematical problems using a range of mathematical models.
5. Work backwards and use inverse operations, if required.