Maths
White Cliffs Primary and Nursery School recognises that maths is both a key skill within school, and a life skill to be utilised through everyday experiences.
A high-quality maths education provides a firm foundation for understanding how maths is used in everyday life and activities, developing pupils’ ability to reason mathematically.
Through the teaching of maths, we aim to develop:
-
A positive attitude towards maths and an awareness of the relevance of maths in the real world.
-
A process of enquiry and experiment.
-
An ability to solve problems and think logically in order to work systematically and accurately.
-
An ability to work both independently and in cooperation with others.
-
Competence and confidence in pupils’ maths knowledge, concepts and skills.
-
An appreciation of the creative aspects of maths and an awareness of its aesthetic appeal.
Factors, Factors, Factors...
Year 6 have been busy exploring factors using 'factor bugs'. They are a fun and systematic way to find all the factors of any given number. By building these visual “bugs,” children could clearly see factor pairs and spot patterns, helping them identify common factors between numbers with confidence. We then applied this understanding to scaling problems, using factors to scale quantities up or down efficiently and accurately. This approach has strengthened our knowledge of number, structure, and mathematical reasoning; all while making factors far more memorable!
Maths that Measures Up
Year Six have been using Maths skills in their Design and Technology cooking project this term. While we made carrot cookies and a three-ingredient Christmas cake, children applied key mathematical skills including accurate weighing and measuring, converting between grams and kilograms, and working with fractions and ratios. We also scaled recipes up and down, calculating new quantities and checking for accuracy. This practical task helped us deepen our understanding of number, measurement, and proportional reasoning: while we produced some tasty results and learned a lot about WWII rationing!
