Our approach to Mathematics at Blackhorse...

Intent (What we are trying to achieve):

Mathematics is imperative for everyday life. At Blackhorse, we focus on providing children with the foundation and building blocks in order to achieve during their next steps in education. Our expert tuition is focused around purposeful practice and personal effort. We will provide a heavy focus on developing factual fluency before applying this into reasoning and investigations. 

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

At Blackhorse, we have worked hard over the past three 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):

Through analysing assessment data, hearing children discuss their understanding and recall number facts we will know when our Mathematics curriculum is having the desired impacted. 

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.