Our Ethos

At Rushden Primary Academy we recognise the significance of high quality maths teaching and learning that is both challenging and thought provoking. Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline that has been developed over centuries, providing the solution to some of history’s most intriguing problems. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. At Rushden Primary we are striving to ensure all our learners become fluent in the fundamentals of mathematics before reasoning mathematically and then solving ‘real life’ maths problems in a relevant context by applying their mathematical understanding. We endeavour to ensure that children develop an enthusiastic and creative attitude towards mathematics that will stay with them throughout their lives by providing ‘real life’ maths opportunities.

Teaching & Learning

At Rushden Primary Academy we follow a whole school long term plan which covers all aspects of the National Curriculum.  Teachers draw on a range of concrete resources we have available to support the development of understanding and create the best possible learning environment for our pupils.

We believe it is important that children do not just focus on getting an answer, but they are able to explain the reasoning behind their lines of enquiry using accurate mathematical vocabulary. We challenge the children to make rich connections across distinct mathematical domains and to use their strong factual and procedural knowledge to help solve problems. By setting mathematics in real life, relevant contexts, children have an opportunity to do this successfully.

Fluency is the fundamental of mathematics, teachers provide children varied and frequent practice with increasingly complex problems over time, so that pupils develop conceptual understanding and the ability to recall and apply knowledge rapidly and accurately. It is paramount for us that children are secure and fluent before progressing on to reasoning. Reasoning is a part of every lesson, and the use of Talking Partners enables the children to verbalise and discuss their understanding, therefore developing their understanding and reasoning skills. It is not a stand-alone skill and is intertwined into daily tasks.   Problem solving is injected into all areas of mathematics at Rushden Primary and allows children the opportunity to apply their mathematical skills in ‘real life’ contexts to become increasingly sophisticated problem solvers. Many problem solving activities are linked to current connected curriculum theme topics.

Learning Walls in each classroom allow the children to have mathematical concepts reinforced and modelled, supporting independent learning. Teachers also refer to the learning walls in lessons and these are altered regularly to coincide with the unit of work being covered that week.