Students deserve a creative and ambitious maths curriculum, which ignites curiosity and prepares them well for everyday life and future employment.

Using a spiral model, the purpose of our Key Stage 3 curriculum is to inspire students, secure strong academic outcomes and to drive learners to think and work independently with a powerful sense of curiosity. Students will develop mathematical fluency and confidence because they are supported by a challenging curriculum that gives abundant opportunities to master their knowledge and understanding so that they can analyse, evaluate, make judgements and justify their reasoning.

During Key Stage 4, students extend their knowledge, skills and understanding. A fundamental aim is to enable pupils to apply their knowledge logically. They see more challenging questions related to a wide variety of contexts and mature in their ability to reason mathematically.

We want our students to not be afraid of making mistakes in the classroom. Making mistakes is a crucial part of learning, and we praise effort as much as success. By developing a culture of growth mindset our students do not feel daunted by complex problems.  Instead our students have a deep, long term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject.

Setting Policy

Teaching in mathematics now happens in both tiered and mixed ability groupings. We have reviewed our approach in light of the available national research evidence, which concludes that mixed ability teaching can raise aspirations of all students and reduce the fear and sense of feeling inadequate when it comes to learning maths. We have also retained setting in Mathematics, informed by the tiered assessment approach that has been retained by examination boards at GCSE.

Ability groups are constructed carefully and in consultation with the Head of Department. Mathematics Staff work alongside the SEND staff when creating and reviewing the groups and will use the following information: 

1. Prior attainment data, including KS2 SATs results.
2. Performance data from in-school assessments, including CATs results.
3. Students’ end of KS4 targets.
4. Professional judgement.

The ability grouping structure in mathematics looks as follows and is reviewed termly or at three points within the year.

Tiered - Class 1, Class 2 and Class 3 are tiered based on the above criteria.

Mixed - Class 4, Class 5, Class 6 and Class 7 are placed in mixed ability groups.

HW Policy

Homework reinforces and consolidates the work done in class and should be an integral part of all Maths courses. Work set should be realistic in terms of difficulty and quantity, but should also be challenging. Students will be set between two and four tasks per week and our KS3 students are encouraged to attend KS3 HW club that runs afterschool in the library Monday to Thursday.

The homework platform used within mathematics is Dr Frost Mathematics and below is a presentation aimed at getting started with Dr Frost.

Any further questions please contact your child’s classroom teacher.

Dr Frost Maths

Maths Curriculum Map

Edexcel GCSE Mathematics Specification