Mathematics Curriculum Intent

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At Winterhill School, our vision within the mathematics department is to give students the mathematical and numerical skills with which they can thrive academically and function successfully in their home community and working environment. The mathematics department intends to ensure that all students gain fluency in mathematical reasoning and problem solving. Our curriculum is designed to ensure that students receive a high quality mathematical education that is tailored to develop the skills the learners will require to develop mathematical application and resilience, and to have a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject.

 

Our mathematics curriculum will give students the opportunity to:

 

• Become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics, through varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that students develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately.

• Reason mathematically by following a line of enquiry, conjecturing relationships and generalisations, and developing an argument, justification or proof using mathematical language in order to develop their resilience when tackling mathematical problems.

• Can solve 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.

• Can communicate, justify, argue and prove using mathematical vocabulary.

• Develop their character, including respect, confidence, and independence, so that they contribute positively to the life of the school, their local community and the wider environment.

 

Our curriculum has three key principles:

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      1.Deep Understanding 

Our practice embeds the importance of deep understanding, as equating progress with learning new procedures and rules means many students will miss out on a depth of understanding. We achieve this by allowing the students to represent concepts in a variety of different ways using both objects and pictures. 

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      2. Mathematical thinking 

We believe that it is essential for students to develop mathematical thinking in and out of the classroom to fully master mathematical concepts. We want students to think like mathematicians, not just DO the maths. We believe that during the learning experience students should; explore, wonder, question, conjecture, experiment and make theories in order to guide their own journey 

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      3. Mathematical Language 

We believe that students should be encouraged to use mathematical language throughout their maths learning to deepen their understanding of concepts.

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The way students speak and write about mathematics has been shown to have an impact on their success in mathematics. We therefore use a carefully sequenced, structured approach to introducing and reinforcing mathematical vocabulary throughout maths lessons, so students have the opportunity to work with word problems from the beginning of their learning and develop a respect and curiosity for the subject.

Alongside these three key principles, problem solving is at the heart of mathematics. By structuring our curriculum so that all students in a year group are learning the same content at the same time, they have longer to focus on each topic. Our aim is to create the optimal conditions for students to take responsibility to learn through problem solving. We also want students to learn to solve problems to develop lifelong transferable skills that will go on to prepare them in future studies of maths at a higher level or in their future employment. 

Throughout our curriculum we also aim to ensure our students gain a love and appreciation for all the mathematics around them and will fully enjoy mathematics.

Key Stage 3 Curriculum Overview

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GCSE Maths Foundation Curriculum Overview
 

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GCSE Maths Higher Curriculum Overview

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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