Maths Week 

A big thank you to all classes and to St Mary Magdalen's for a fabulous Maths week. We had an amazing online workshop from CSI: Storyland where the children had to solve a crime. We investigated some Maths based questions from finding the oldest tree in the school garden to discover who the tallest pupil was in the whole school! We even had the chance to visit St Mary Magdalene and play some fun maths games made by the children in years 3 to 5! 

Number Day 4th February 2022

A huge thank you to all the children and parents for all your support in what was na amazing day. We had a wonderful day filled with Maths Activities and managed to raise huge amount of money for the NSPCC!

Well done everyone! 

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/theconventofjesusandmary

Maths support at home: 

If you feel like you would extra support with how we teach Maths in school, please see this excellent resource created by White Rose.  

https://whiterosemaths.com/maths-with-michael

Maths is all around us!

Maths has been used to understand the world around us for thousands of years and that is no different today. We teach children that maths truly is everywhere! The children have gone on number hunts and found numbers on buses, clocks, and houses; they have gone on shape hunts and found shapes on cars, signs and buildings. In our school, mathematical development is nurtured through the use of their own environment because it teaches them that the mathematical concepts we learn about are interconnected to our real world experiences. We like to use everyday objects that children can relate to for topics such as measuring, weighing, and ordering. On a daily basis, we use our class calendar to teach time and we like to go into the garden as well and observe the trees and plants!

Developing excellent problem solvers!

We want all of our children to become confident and competent problem solvers which is why children spend a day a week being exposed to various problem solving challenges. This provides the children opportunities to practise strategies such as trial and error, working systematically, conjecturing, visualizing and pattern spotting. Problem solving is best described by GenerationReady as "allowing students to develop understanding and explain the processes used to arrive at solutions, rather than remembering and applying a set of procedures."

Can you solve the problems below? 

We use many different types of concrete resources to help us learn maths!

Key Stage 1 Maths!

The principal focus for mathematics teaching in Key Stage 1 is "to ensure that pupils develop confidence and mental fluency with whole numbers, counting and place value," as stated in the National Curriculum. We work really hard to provide the children with the solid foundation they need with numbers in order to conquer the more abstract maths that they will encounter in Key Stage 2. The children get lots of practise to solve problems with concrete materials to develop that deeper understanding needed for maths. 

You don't need a ruler to measure!

In Reception, we learn about measuring using non-standard units which means the children learn how to use different objects to measure something. In this lesson, we traced around a child and used different objects in the classroom to measure the height of this child. The children excitedly raced around the room to find things like felt tips, train tracks, books and cubes to measure in. We laid the objects flat on the ground from the feet to the head and counted how many objects tall this child was. At the end of the lesson, the children noticed a pattern: "The bigger the stuff we use to measure, the number is smaller. But if you use something small like the cubes, it takes more." 

We love Numicon!

Numicon are a staple in every classroom in our school. It is an amazing mathematical resource that helps children grasp mathematical concepts in a concrete way. The reason why love this resource so much is because "[t]he aim of Numicon is to make numbers real for children through them being able to see and touch them. It fits in with the Maths Mastery approach that’s used in many schools, providing a concrete object to represent each number. It also has a multi-sensory approach that’s known to help learning."

Fantastic maths books to read!

Educators have always stressed the importance of reading with your child and what better way to build literacy AND maths skills at the same time than to read MATHS books! Here is a selection of wonderful maths books that explores counting, skip counting, shapes, and number patterns! 

Celebrating 100 Days at School

The 100th day of school marks a special opportunity to reflect upon and celebrate major milestones in your students’ academic achievement.It is a great way for the school to celebrate the various mathematical concepts that can be taught using the number 100 such as different ways to groups 100 objects. The children also did activities like ordering the numbers 1-100, finding objects measuring 100 cm, building a paper chain and thinking of what life was like 100 years ago! What a fun day!

Let's Count 

Maths and the Census!