At Alverton School, we see Maths as an exciting, creative and highly-connected subject which has been developed over centuries to provide the answers to some of the world’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment.
At a primary school level, it is also one of the keystones of education upon which children base their opinion of themselves as learners. Many children love Maths: they enjoy the challenge of learning times tables, are hungry to learn new methods and skills and look forward to an algebra lesson like a trip to the beach. However, lots of children feel very differently. For a host of different reasons they feel that they “Can’t do Maths”. Our curriculum has, at its heart, an understanding of this emotion and also an appreciation of the amazing boost to confidence a little mathematical success has. Therefore, we focus heavily on place value and arithmetic in the Autumn Term and build in many opportunities for children to see that actually, they can do Maths. At this point, when we know that the children have mastered the use of the mathematical tools required, we introduce more reasoning and problem solving.
We believe that this fusion of high quality teaching with an understanding of the power of a little self-belief, helps our pupils to leave primary school with skills, knowledge and confidence to successfully apply what they know and extend their learning as fully as possible.