Maths Recovery Curriculum

In the event of school closures, a ‘Maths Recovery Curriculum’ will be followed until children have ‘caught up’ in their Mathematical learning. The following strategies will be used to ensure children recover from any missed learning time due to school closures:

Assessment

Following a significant school closure and at the start of the academic year; children will complete PiXL tests (Arithmetic and 1 x Reasoning with score doubled) from their previous year group to assess where they currently are in their learning. Those children who were ‘Yellow’ in their previous year group will take the test from 2 prior to their current year. Teachers will use the QLA document to highlight gaps in knowledge and children will be assigned a ‘colour’ once their scores have been collated. These colours will be used to identify which children require intervention and how much. Provision Maps can then be completed by class teachers once interventions have been arranged. If a school closure occurs later in the year or for a brief period, ‘Entry and Exit’ tests can be used to baseline and assess children, using previous year group tests where needed. PiXL tests or Entry and Exit tests can be used to identify the lowest 20% of children in each cohort, should this be required.

Curriculum Content

In the case of a school closure at the start of the school year, we will prioritise the Number and Place Value unit and this will be taught first, as normal in the Autumn term. Teachers will then use the previous year group’s Entry Tests to assess prior knowledge (see diagnostic flow chart). Those children who were ‘Yellow’ in their previous school year will complete the tests which are 2 years prior to their current year. The teacher can then teach from previous year group objectives in the Number and Place Value unit until Exit Tests can be completed. Completed Entry and Exit Tests can be used as a basis for intervention groups. SEND children will need to complete tests which are appropriate to their ability and may not just be from their previous year group. With the use of Entry/Exit tests, the curriculum will be delivered as normal; the only difference being that teachers will use the previous 2 year’s tests and objectives when teaching to ensure there are no gaps in learning. This will obviously take longer and thus it will be expected that extra time will be needed for each unit, however this all depends on how much children have retained which cannot yet be assessed.

 Catching Children Up

Additional time will be given for Maths catch-up, which will be used to cover objectives that were missed or may be missed in future due to school closure. When the children move into a new class, the previous teacher will pass on a list of objectives which were missed due to the closure and these will be taught in the extra Maths session, as well as times tables. These sessions will be whiteboard-based or practical and will simply involve exposure to an objective. In some cases, teachers will be able to cover more than one objective in a week, in others they may need to revisit the same objective over several sessions. Sometimes this may involve a cross-curricular link, for example with Science and statistics or co-ordinates with Geography. Alongside this, children will use this additional session to practice times tables from their year group and all previous year groups. Ipads will be rotated and will be available for Times Tables Rockstars and PiXl Times Tables apps. In the event of a school closure earlier in the academic calendar, teachers may also need to pull future objectives which would usually be taught last chronologically and ensure that children are taught these before the end of the school term.

In the first few Maths lessons of a new term or following a lengthy school closure, teachers will plan lessons which are whiteboard-based or practical from the objectives given below. The objectives below are taken from the previous year’s curriculum to build children’s confidence when returning to school. If these are too difficult, staff will look to 2 years’ previous to their current year group. Teachers will ensure they assess children upon their return to school and thus identify the lowest 20% of children ready for intervention and further action. If the lowest 20% of children are at home due to isolation or school closure, online ‘Zoom’ calls can be used for 1:1 session with children to ensure they catch up as soon as possible.

Following a school closure and once we have identified children who may need to ‘catch up’, we will use Entry and Exit tests to ensure children’s knowledge and understanding in different areas of Maths is forensically examined. These tests allow teachers to identify gaps down to a specific learning objective. These objectives can then be covered in class, during the additional session on an afternoon, or in a small group or 1:1 session targeted at those children who require this level of support. For children still learning from home, 1:1 or small group support can be given using an online platform such as Zoom or Seesaw.

Priority Objectives – Upon Return to School:

In Year 1:

• To count up to 20 objects.
• To order numbers to ten.
• To give one more or less than a number to twenty.

In Year 2:

• To count sets of objects reliably.
• To count, read and write numbers to 100 in numerals.
• To count to and across 100 forwards and backwards starting from 0 or any given number
• To begin to understand the place value of each digit up to 100.
• To represent numbers and number sentences using objects.

In Year 3:

• To read and write numbers to at least 100 in numerals and words.
• To order and compare numbers to at least 100.
• To identify and represent numbers in different ways (e.g. 7 is 5 and 2, 6 and 1)
• To recognise the place value of each digit in a two-digit number.
• To count in 2s, 5s and 10s.

In Year 4:

• To read and write numbers to up to 1,000 in numerals and words.
• To recognise the place value of each digit in a three digit number (100s, 10s and 1s and have some awareness of the 1000s column).
• To compare and order numbers from 0 up to a 1000 using words such as smaller, smallest, bigger, biggest, larger, largest.

In Year 5:

• To read and write numbers to with three, four and five digits in numerals and words.
• To recognise the place value of each digit in a five digit number.
• To compare and order numbers form 0 to 10,000.

In Year 6:

• To read and write numbers with any amount of digits up to 1 000 000.
• To order and compare numbers from 0 up to 1 000 000.
• To know that value of an underlined digit in any number up to 1000 000.

Following a lengthy school closure and if deemed necessary, children will sit PIXL tests. The diagnostic flow chart will be used to decide which tests children complete, for example, a year 6 child who was judged ‘Green’ in year 5 will take the year 5 tests. Some children, who were ‘Yellow’ in their most recent assessment on the tracking sheet by the previous teacher will take a test from 2 years prior to ensure they can catch up on any gaps in knowledge. From week three, children should take the entry tests as explained above and teaching can commence as normal.