Victoria Junior School
Mathematics
At Victoria, our maths curriculum aims to provide children with a solid understanding of the subject, which they can apply to a variety of situations. Each day, the pupils have a 10 - 20 minute Early Bird Maths session which consolidates their understanding of basic maths skills and mental strategies as well as pre-teaching areas of the curriculum not yet covered.. This is followed by an hour-long maths lesson in which children are taught the national curriculum objectives. We use a concrete, pictoral and abstract method of teaching so that we can develop our children's understanding as well as enhancing the children's deep understanding of the importance of mathematical language.
Year group Overviews (see below)
| Name | Format | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Files | |||
| year3overview.pdf | |||
| year4overview.pdf | |||
| year5overview.pdf | |||
| year6overview.pdf |
Early Bird Maths
We are dedicated to improving the arithmetic skills of all our students. One of the ways that we do this is through our early bird maths sessions. During the morning the children are given a variety of fluency questions. The children try to answer as many as they can. The number of questions expected of the children increases as the children go through school.
The questions can be related to previous maths, current maths learning or can be used as a pre-teaching activity to get the children ready for a new maths concept they are going to be taught. The skills that the children are practising stay the same throughout that week.
The children absolutely love it as they can see their progress throughout the week and we find it a great start to our day.
Learn By Hearts
Learn by hearts are a set of maths facts that the children are given to learn. They are send home in a two week cycle. The children are tested on the facts at the end of the first week and then again at the end of the second week. Where possible, we try to match the facts to the children's current learning.
Please see the flow chart for further information.
Times Tables
To be great mathematicians, we believe that the children need to have a good understanding of their times tables. We promote this in school by setting a focused times table each week for each maths group. The children practise these times tables in class and are encouraged to further develop their knowledge at home. Each week, a group times table champion from each class is chosen to represent their class in a 'Times Table Battle'. The winning class gets their champion in the hall of fame and that champion gets to sit on benches in our Friday assemblies. At the end of the term, we have an ultimate showdown to decide on the 'Times Table Class Champions'. The winning child receives a prize.
Within school, we also have access to Times Table Rockstars. The children love using this programme to speed up their recall. They also enjoy challenging their classmates (and teachers) to see who can answer the most questions in the allotted time.