At Pond Meadow, we recognise that the effective teaching of mathematics is key to ensuring that our pupils develop functional and purposeful maths skills that they can utilise and apply successfully both now and in later life.

The teaching of maths at Pond Meadow ensures all pupils are provided with regular opportunities to develop their understanding of a range of mathematical concepts using personalised teaching approaches to ensure that learning is accessible, meaningful and functional. The curriculum supports all pupils to extend their mathematical knowledge and understanding beyond discreet maths lessons and promote the generalisation of these skills across a range of contexts.

Problem-solving is continually promoted across the curriculum and our bespoke maths framework ensures that this is successfully facilitated at levels appropriate for all pupils. At Pond Meadow we recognise that problem-solving will look vastly different for the individual. We pride ourselves in providing a personalised and aspirational curriculum that enables all pupils to effectively practise these skills at a level that is meaningful to them and tailored to their individual need.   

Maths is taught throughout the key stages, following guidance from the National Curriculum and the EYFS framework in the Foundation Stage. In the secondary department the curriculum also incorporates aspects of ASDAN’s programs of study which extends to NOCN functional skills in KS 5.  All pupils work at relevant and appropriate levels relating to their personalised targets.  Their progress is recorded on 'Evidence for Learning', a platform and tool to develop and demonstrate connected practice which links curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.

Intent

• To create a love of maths through engaging and exciting lessons
• To embed mathematical language across the curriculum and throughout the school day
• To facilitate access to a broad range of engaging maths resources
• To embed a concrete-pictorial-abstract approach in all maths lessons
• To expose all pupils to a range of personalised reasoning and problem-solving To provide opportunities for pupils to apply their mathematical understanding in a range of functional environments
• To support pupils to use their mathematical knowledge to develop lifelong functional skills and strategies

Implementation

All maths lessons follow a CPA (Concrete, Pictorial and Abstract) approach. This approach provides pupils with the opportunity to manipulate concrete resources, apply this knowledge to a pictorial representation and then generalise understanding through abstract methods. This facilitates the rehearsal of skills and provides pupils with a mechanical understanding of what is happening during the operation. This approach successfully enables pupils to make connections between key concepts, develop their reasoning and fluency skills and apply these to support problem-solving throughout their day.

We use White Rose Maths to support the delivery of maths lessons. This allows teachers to effectively sequence lessons and break learning down into micro-steps to ensure the needs of all learners are met.

Our pre-formal learners follow our engagement pathway. In the context of maths, they will develop their skills through a multi-sensory approach that is centred around the 5 engagement scale indicators to support the development of early number and problem-solving skills.  

The teaching of maths follows the expectations set out in the school’s Teaching & Learning Guidance. These include using specialist teaching strategies such as Attention Autism, TEACCH, Sensology and TACPAC to ensure lessons are engaging and structured in a way that supports the learning profiles of our pupils. A key focus of all teaching is the effective grouping of pupils to ensure that all are challenged at a level appropriate to their individual need and have personalised and aspirational learning objectives that facilitate a high level of progress for all.

Impact

We have high expectations that all students will make good progress against their aspirational IEP targets, as well as our bespoke Maths Framework that sits within Evidence for Learning. Any student who is not making sufficient progress will be identified and receive targeted support/interventions.

The impact of the teaching of maths is measured by:

• Regular formative assessment across contexts
• Student’s ability to generalise skills across contexts
• Assessment of classwork
• Termly summative assessment of Evidence for Learning
• Termly pupil progress meetings
• Regular assessment against IEP targets on Evidence for Learning
• ASDAN accreditation (KS 5)
• ASDAN accreditation (KS 5) against specific maths units
• Assessment against Pre-Key Stage Standards in years 2 and 6
• Continuous review of the maths curriculum and bespoke assessment trackers
• Destination data