At St Joseph’s we believe that Maths is a creative and highly interconnected discipline. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. A high-quality mathematics education therefore provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject. As a school, we recognise that the key to unlocking the potential in our children is through the development of basic mathematical skills and the understanding of mathematical concepts. We therefore place great emphasis on the use of concrete resources and pictorial representations at all ages, to enable children to fully understand the concepts and principals, when presented with abstract calculations and questions. Our maths curriculum is progressive; at KS2 it is designed to develop competencies to equip pupils for KS3 where they will build on their learning at primary school, make connections and solve increasingly sophisticated problems. We aim to develop well rounded and successful Mathematicians by:

• Providing opportunities to become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, including through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately
• Reasoning mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language
• Solving problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions