Early Maths at Grappenhall Heys

We offer our children in Nursery and Reception an exciting maths curriculum that embeds key knowledge and vocabulary and offers opportunities for them to apply their understanding.

N​ursery Maths

W​e encourage all children to engage in fun, active maths play and that starts right from Nursery. Maths activities, manipulatives and play opportunities are a vital element of our indoor and outdoor continuous provision. There is a big focus on numbers to 5 in Nursery and the children learn maths with links made to all other elements of the EYFS curriculum.

Our curriculum is taught with an understanding of the need to capture and hold children’s attention for short, regular periods of time. We plan and deliver activities which encourage children to utilise their working memories and to retain key maths knowledge in their long-term memories. In maths, our curriculum design makes links and connections to prior and future learning and encourages children to think flexibly to apply their knowledge in a variety of contexts.

Our Nursery maths scheme is based on White Rose Maths resources, which complements the mastery approach that we adopt across school. Learning objectives planned across the year allow time for consolidation, exploration and extension. Teaching is purposeful and the pace brisk but fair. Teachers identify children who may need support and barriers to learning are removed, work is adapted and highly-skilled staff are used to support children with the highest need. Learning is planned for, misconceptions anticipated and our expectations are always high.

R​eception Maths

Developing a secure understanding of early mathematical concepts is crucial and all children need time (structured and unstructured) to explore manipulatives; to represent problems in their own ways, and to communicate their mathematical thinking. We encourage children to investigate maths within meaningful contexts – such as carefully selected games, stories and daily routines and provide the children with mathematical opportunities in a way that makes sense to them. Our pupils love maths and we work hard to ensure that they are engaged and motivated in both guided and independent learning. Mathematical questioning is introduced at this early stage and children are taught to reason and make connections, to respond and provide solutions. The success of this approach is evident in the readiness of our pupils’ entry into Key Stage 1.

Our children learn through frequent, regular and meaningful mathematics experiences both within and beyond the maths lesson. Opportunities are provided for daily independent exploration and for children to practise their developing skills and knowledge so that they improve their competence and confidence in applying them. We use our outdoor environment to encourage children to spot shapes and numbers naturally and to explore, investigate and build dens, which can help children explore shape, space and measure. Our Reception classes hold daily maths gatherings.

 

 

 

In addition to numeracy knowledge, our early maths support helps skills such as problem solving, understanding and using shapes and measure and developing their own spatial awareness. It helps children to recognise, create and describe patterns, which is essential for early problem-solving skills.

O​ur school has adopted and adapted the White Rose Maths curriculum to support the learning and teaching of maths and to promote number sense. The children have daily teacher-led gatherings which check initial maths understanding, highlight gaps in learning and address misconceptions. We use the whole EYFS provision to introduce further maths activities. There are adult-led sessions and games and activities in both indoor and outdoor to practise and rehearse prior and current learning. New maths learning is always introduced by the teacher.

The children and staff regularly update a maths learning journey display so that the children can keep looking back at what they have previously learnt and what they want to remember. Maths vocabulary is represented visually using Widgit to help the children make mathematical connections and support recall.

In Early Years, the EYFS Statutory Framework (click here) is used for planning and assessment alongside and Development Matters document (click here) as guidance. Pupils experience a wide range of activities linked to number and shape, space & measure. Activities are planned for children to play, explore, actively learn and develop their thinking skills in maths through focused, continuous and enhanced provision. In Early Years, pupils will also engage in structured mathematical activities – these may be adult-led sessions or independent activities.

C​lick here for a knowledge organiser to support children as they leave Reception and prepare for Year 1.

In the second Autumn half term, o​ur Reception children use Numbots as an introduction to learning key number facts. Please see your child's teacher if you don't have a login for this.