Link Academy Councillor Review of FUN Maths 1st Dec 2017

Focus – Maths

Today, I came into school in my role as an Academy Councillor to meet with the Maths Lead, Mrs Kuffour. The focus of the meeting was to:

  1. Review the implementation of FUN Maths.
  2. Evaluate the impact of FUN Maths over the past term.
  3. Assess the progress of pupils over time.
  4. Review evidence of progression throughout the school in fluency, calculating and problem solving.

During the course of the morning, we completed a book scan, a learning walk and talked to pupils in order to assess the implementation of Fun Maths and its impact. This monitoring was also a way for me to get to know more children throughout the school and experience their wonderful teaching and learning.

 The book scan provided evidence of the:

  • Clear impact of recent developments in Maths for pupils across the school.
  • Significant improvement in all books seen from children from a range of different abilities, backgrounds including disadvantaged pupils and SEND. In all books there was evidence of a high level of progression by all pupils.
  • Variety of activities provided to engage pupils, develop their fluency of recall and to extend their learning through problem solving activities.
  • High standard of presentation held by all members of staff.
  • Innovative and creative approach of all staff towards the new strategy. All were compliant with the implementation of FUN Maths and provided highly engaging learning activities to order to enable the children to make progress.
  • Progression throughout the whole school in number facts, calculating, problem solving and reasoning.

I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the learning of the pupils during our learning walk. It was an exceptionally positive experience: all learners were thoroughly engaged in their activities and showed great enthusiasm. A variety of interesting and challenging activities were provided by teachers to develop fluency and understanding in number. Across the school children were singing number songs, chanting number facts and applying their facts when calculating.

It is evident that all teachers work exceptionally hard to make learning fun and interactive so that pupils can make progress. They certainly shared their passion and enthusiasm for Maths with the pupils.

This enthusiasm for Maths was also evident in the pupils we spoke with in lessons and during our pupil interview. All pupils showed enthusiasm for FUN Maths. They were very confident at sharing their opinions. They all knew that FUN Maths stood for Fluency and Understanding in Number and could all explain how they felt it helped them to make progress in Maths. For example, Daisy (Y4) stated: ‘It helps with our learning as it is enjoyable and the songs you sing are catchy and you can remember them.’ Jacob (Y6) stated: ‘You learn in lots of different ways, for example singing songs, playing games, solving problems… This improves our knowledge of our times tables.’ The pupils’ only development point for FUN Maths was that they wanted longer sessions.

Thank you to all at The Meadows for sharing with me your learning and teaching today. It is evident that we have progressed greatly since September, as is demonstrated also by the end of term FUN Maths results which I have reviewed.  

We are well on our way with our Maths SIP (School Improvement Plan) for this year, which is all focused upon improving outcomes for the children in this school.

Jo Cookson