Mathematics at St James's
Maths is essential to everyday life and understanding the world around us.
The St. James’ Mathematics department want our pupils to enjoy and to feel successful in Mathematics.
We strive to equip them with the skills to become resilient, numerate and curious mathematicians and we hope to share our own appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics.
Our Curriculum
It is our belief that all students can be successful Mathematicians. We feel that it is important that all students have opportunities to feel that success, experience the awe and wonder of Mathematics and enjoy the satisfaction of using their knowledge and skills to solve increasingly complex problems.
Our new five-year curriculum has been planned to give all students the opportunity to become successful Mathematicians. We build on the skills students have learned in primary and ensure that key concepts are fully understood. We aim to ensure that students have strong foundations in number, algebra and proportional reasoning in order to prepare them to tackle increasingly broad and complex problems as they progress through secondary school.
We aim to develop students’ mathematical fluency, reasoning and problem solving alongside their use of Mathematical vocabulary, linked to the schools “What Makes A Good …” philosophy.
Lesson Structure
Students in year 7 and 8 have five one-hour Maths lessons per fortnight. There are eight timetabled lessons per fortnight in year 9, six in year 10 and seven in year 11.
Lessons will usually begin with an entry task reviewing previous learning. We support students in acquiring new knowledge through modelling, explanation and guided practice. We will also use concrete manipulatives and pictorial representations to help students gain an understanding of a new concept. Students are assessed in a variety of ways including questioning in class, low stakes quizzes, end of topic tests and half termly assessments. Students receive regular feedback from their teachers which may be verbal or written.
Independent Practise
We expect students to complete independent practise at appropriate times in lessons and also at home. Students will receive homework every week to be completed on www.sparxmaths.co.uk in their yellow homework books. In the first half term of every year the homework will recap the previous year of content. Then each following half term will recap the previous half term content, allowing pupils more practise to become more fluent in the key concepts.
If you want to further support your child at home we have fundamentals booklets that work alongside our curriculum, these are available to download below.
In Year 11, the homework covers the topics in preparation for the fortnightly GSCE mini assessments. This allows pupils to feel confident in the mathematical skills they need to then apply to exam style questions. Pupils are also given an exam booklet to work through at home.
We believe that it is essential that students form good habits round independent study from year 7 onwards. Students are also supported in this by completing weekly retrieval quizzes in class.
We run a lunchtime club in an ICT room on Wednesdays for students who need support with homework or are struggling to access it at home.
Other websites that GCSE students may find helpful are:
www.MathsGenie.co.uk
www.OnMaths.com
www.CorbettMaths,com
Enrichment
We strongly believe that Maths is a fascinating subject and want to provide our students with opportunities to use their skills in different ways.
- We run the UK Mathematics Trust challenges, a national problem-solving competition.
- The Mathematical Olympiad for Girls allows our top students to experience some wonderful challenging questions.
- We nominate our top Year 7 students to take part in the Parallel Academy, https://parallel.org.uk/
- The Cipher Challenge https://www.cipherchallenge.org/ gives our students an opportunity to apply their maths skills to code breaking problems.
- Every year we host an 'Enquiry Week' where students can take part in Mathematical and logical thinking activities for the full week. We refresh these activities yearly but they have included, Towers of Hanoi, Nim, Draughts, STEM challenges, origami.
- Inter form times table competition in conjunction with the PE department.
We are proud that Maths A level was the most popular A level choice amongst our Year 11 leavers last year.
Five Year Curriculum
Fundamentals Booklets
Year 7 booklet
Year 8 booklet
Year 9 booklet
