At St Nicholas, we are committed to being a fully inclusive school, where all pupils are welcomed, valued and supported to succeed. We provide a broad and balanced curriculum for all pupils, underpinned by high expectations and a belief that every child can achieve.

Our first approach is always high-quality teaching, where the learning objective remains the same for all pupils. We do not routinely lower expectations. Instead, we focus on identifying and removing barriers to learning, adapting how pupils access the curriculum through:

• carefully planned scaffolding
• explicit modelling and use of visuals
• pre-teaching and reinforcement of key vocabulary
• structured opportunities for talk and communication
• use of practical and concrete resources
• flexible grouping and adult support where appropriate

Where needed, pupils may demonstrate their understanding in different ways, including:

• verbal responses
• practical outcomes
• use of assistive technology
• supported or adapted recording

For pupils working significantly below age-related expectations, learning is adapted so that they remain fully included in the same curriculum experiences, themes and contexts as their peers, while working towards personalised targets linked to their individual needs.

Support is planned and reviewed through the school’s graduated approach of assess, plan, do, review, ensuring that provision is responsive, builds over time, and leads to meaningful progress and increasing independence.

All teachers are responsible for the progress and inclusion of all pupils in their class, and support staff are deployed to enhance access and promote independence, rather than replace teacher interaction.

Our Mathematics curriculum is carefully sequenced so that pupils build knowledge, develop fluency and deepen their understanding progressively over time. We follow an adaptive White Rose Maths long-term plan, which is based on the National Curriculum and provides a coherent progression through the key mathematical concepts and skills pupils need to master.

Progression is built through small, carefully connected steps, enabling pupils to continually draw upon and strengthen prior learning. Rather than viewing mathematical concepts as isolated areas of learning, our curriculum recognises that mathematics is an interconnected discipline, where new knowledge is developed by making connections to what pupils already know. This supports pupils to develop increasingly secure understanding, fluency and confidence as they move through school.

Our progression is underpinned by the Ready to Progress criteria, which identify the essential knowledge and understanding pupils need to have secured before moving on to new concepts. Teachers use these criteria alongside ongoing assessment to identify gaps and misconceptions, enabling them to adapt planning, pre-teach key knowledge or provide additional opportunities to practise and consolidate learning. 

Throughout the curriculum, pupils develop the three aims of the National Curriculum: fluency, reasoning and problem-solving. These are woven throughout learning so that pupils not only know mathematical facts and procedures, but can explain their thinking, make connections, identify patterns, apply their knowledge and solve increasingly complex problems. Practical and visual representations, including the concrete-pictorial-abstract approach, are used to help pupils develop conceptual understanding before moving towards increasingly abstract mathematical thinking.

Our Mathematics curriculum is therefore coherent, connected and responsive: carefully sequenced through small steps, rooted in prior knowledge and designed to develop confident mathematicians who understand that mathematics is not a collection of separate skills, but an interconnected network of ideas that can be explored, applied and mastered.

The National Curriculum aims to help children become confident, fluent and flexible mathematicians who can use mathematics in everyday life and in a wide range of situations. Children are taught to develop a secure understanding of mathematical concepts, rather than simply memorising procedures.

Across their time in primary school, children develop knowledge and skills across several key areas of mathematics, including number, calculation, fractions, decimals and percentages, measurement, geometry, statistics, ratio and proportion, and algebra.

The curriculum is built around three important aspects of mathematical learning:

• Fluency – developing secure knowledge of number facts, times tables and calculation methods, and becoming increasingly efficient and accurate.
• Reasoning – explaining mathematical thinking, making connections, spotting patterns and using mathematical language to justify ideas.
• Problem-solving – applying mathematical knowledge and choosing appropriate strategies to solve problems in familiar and unfamiliar situations.

Children are expected to make connections between different areas of mathematics and to use what they already know when learning something new. Practical experiences, visual representations and mathematical discussion support children in developing a deeper understanding before they move towards more abstract mathematics.

By the end of Key Stage 1, children should have developed a strong understanding of number and place value, become confident with the four operations, and begun to apply their knowledge to fractions, measurement, geometry and statistics.

By the end of Key Stage 2, children build on this foundation to work confidently with increasingly complex calculations, fractions, decimals and percentages, ratio and proportion, measurement, geometry and statistics. They also begin to use simple algebraic ideas and develop the ability to reason and solve more sophisticated problems.

Throughout primary school, children are encouraged to think mathematically, make connections, learn from mistakes and explain their thinking. Our aim is not simply for children to get the correct answer, but to understand why a method works and to be able to apply their mathematical knowledge confidently in new situations.

At St Nicholas Catholic Primary School, we use the Number Sense Maths programme to develop secure number knowledge, efficient calculation strategies and fluent recall of key mathematical facts. The programme is carefully sequenced so that children develop a connected understanding of number, learning to use facts they already know to work out facts they do not yet know.

From Year 1 to Year 4, all children take part in a daily Number Sense lesson, which forms the first 10 minutes of each mathematics lesson.

The programme has two complementary strands:

Number Facts Fluency begins in Year 1 and continues until the Spring Term of Year 3. Children develop secure knowledge of key addition and subtraction facts, including number bonds, doubles and near doubles, complements and facts within and across 10. They learn strategies for deriving unknown facts from known facts, rather than relying on counting or memorising every fact individually.

Times Table Fluency begins in the Spring Term of Year 3 and continues until the Spring Term of Year 5. Children develop understanding and fluent recall of key multiplication and related division facts. They explore patterns and relationships between multiplication facts and use strategies such as known facts, doubling and halving, commutativity and related facts to derive facts they do not yet know.

In both strands, children use visual representations, mathematical discussion, oral rehearsal, retrieval and repeated practice to develop increasingly automatic recall while maintaining an understanding of the relationships between facts.

From Year 5 onwards, children have weekly Number Sense consolidation sessions to maintain and strengthen their fluency, with additional practice provided where assessment identifies a need.

Through this approach, children develop more than a collection of memorised facts. They build a deep, connected network of number knowledge that supports confident calculation, reasoning and problem solving throughout the mathematics curriculum.

We use a wide variety of assessment strategies throughout our maths lessons to check understanding, respond to misconceptions and plan the next steps in learning. These include whole-class whiteboards, such as “one, two, three, show me...”, guided practice, regular diagnostic and hinge questions, live marking and instant feedback during lessons.

We also build in regular opportunities for discussion so that children can talk about mathematical concepts, explain their thinking and deepen their understanding. Marking ensures any misconceptions can be addressed quickly, with interventions planned promptly where needed. Children are encouraged to respond to feedback using green pen, helping them to act on advice and improve their work.

To support recall and retention, we use low-stakes quizzing, online tools such as Kahoot and Blooket, and Flashback 4 on a Friday morning to revisit prior learning. Our maths homework, 'Big Maths,' reviews the whole curriculum through 25 questions. Children complete the prior year group version up until Christmas to support retention and retrieval. These are marked together at the start of a maths lesson on a Tuesday.

Summative assessments are carried out termly using Testbase. These assessment weeks are always followed by gap analysis and consolidation weeks, allowing staff to revisit learning, secure key concepts and address anything that needs further attention. 

We believe that mathematics should be enjoyable, engaging and relevant to children’s everyday lives. We want pupils to see that maths is not simply something that happens in a maths lesson, but an essential part of the world around them. We provide opportunities for children to use and apply their mathematical knowledge in real-life contexts, helping them understand why maths matters and how it is used beyond the classroom.

We aim to make maths fun, memorable and meaningful through a range of experiences and enrichment opportunities, including:

• World Maths Day
• NSPCC Number Day
• Times Tables Rock Stars competitions
• Maths trails for families
• Lego Club, supporting spatial reasoning, shape and problem-solving
• Weekly Maths Award during praise assembly
• Careers Week, exploring the many ways mathematics is used in different professions
• Financial education through PHSE – understanding money, budgeting, saving, spending, needs and wants, value for money and making responsible financial decisions
• Enterprise Week – planning a product or event, calculating costs, setting prices, budgeting and considering profit
• Cooking and baking – measuring, weighing, scaling recipes, fractions, time and temperature.

Through these experiences, we encourage children to be curious about mathematics, make connections and recognise maths in the world around them. We want pupils to leave primary school understanding that mathematics is something they can enjoy, explore and use, as well as a subject they can master.