Maths

Everyone can do maths is a real focus in our curriculum. We believe that when students feel successful, they are more likely to succeed. Our curriculum is designed with small carefully sequenced steps which must be mastered before pupils move to the next stage. Fundamental skills and knowledge are secured first. This often entails focusing on curriculum content in considerable depth at early stages. Resources, including new technologies and manipulatives are used to facilitate learning and to track each student’s learning journey. Students are encouraged to take an active part of their learning, through asking questions, reviewing their assessments, and completing follow up tasks that allow them to make further progress.

KS3/KS4

We have overhauled the maths curriculum with the implementation of Mastery Curriculum over the last 3 years. The new schemes of work have a big focus on teaching in small steps and then guiding students practice so they can make connections to previous and future learning. The rationale behind this is to deal with the limitations of working memory so that even the weakest students can make progress as well as allowing our most able to make connections and make rapid progress.

All students at Key Stages Three and Four follow a comprehensive curriculum with 4 lessons a week which cover five broad areas:

Number
Algebra
Shape and Space
Data
Ratio and Proportion Problem solving is key feature and is incorporated into the topic areas listed. GCSE Maths has a Foundation and Higher tier and is graded using the new 1 – 9 grading system. The students are assessed via three examinations that are all taken at the same tier at the end of year 11. All three papers are worth 80 marks and are equally weighted. One paper is calculator and the other two are non-calculator. The papers consist of a mixture of question styles, from short, single-mark questions to multi-step problems. The mathematical demand increases as a student progress through the paper.

Extra curricular:

We regularly enter students at every key stage for maths challenges and give opportunities to pursue Maths outside the classroom.

We also run a variety of clubs throughout the year everything from homework help to learning how to complete a Rubik’s cube.

Taking Maths Further

We offer additional Mathematical qualifications as options to KS4 students we believe will succeed at them. We have two classes of higher statistics students and 1 class of additional mathematics students that take place after school, working towards these qualifications.

Key Stage 5

Details of the Key stage 5 curriculum in maths can be found on the Oakes college website by clicking here.