F.U.N Maths

F.U.N Maths
(Fluency and Understanding in Number)

At The Meadows, we strive for our children to be successful and proficient mathematicians. The reason for this is simple: Maths is all around us and we use it in our everyday lives. We use maths when we are baking, when shopping, whilst driving, when solving problems. We use maths when we are drawing, when building, whilst waiting for the bus and when going on holiday. We even use maths when we don’t even realise it. Therefore it is essential that we enable our children to be successful in this subject. 

What is a successful mathematician?

According the ‘The National Curriculum’, successful mathematicians:
•    Solve problems.
•    Fluently recall facts and have the ability to apply this knowledge rapidly and accurately. 
•    Reason mathematically and justify their answers. 

How can we help our pupils to become successful mathematicians? 

In order for a child to be successful (either personally or academically) they must practise. This is true of any mathematician. Frequent practise will enable children to have a secure understanding and enable them to recall facts quickly and fluently so that they can apply them in many different contexts. 

In light of this, we have decided to introduce daily F.U.N Maths sessions (Fluency and Understanding in Number). The aim of these sessions is to enable children to practise number facts in order to improve the speed of their recall. We believe that over learning number facts will also enable our children to be secure enough to apply their knowledge in a range of contexts. 

These sessions will last for 20 minutes a day and will take place before the maths lesson. They will involve singing and chanting number facts, playing games involving number facts as well as the opportunity to solve problems and apply their knowledge when calculating. 

In order to support these sessions, weekly mental maths homework will be sent home for all children in years 1 to 6. This will enable them to consolidate their learning and work on the number facts that they need to be able to recall for their milestone of learning (Milestone 1 being y1&2, Milestone 2 being y3&4 and Milestone 3 being y5&6). These facts will be tested, under timed conditions, twice a week in a similar manner to our spelling tests. 

How can you help your child to become fluent mathematicians?

Encourage them to practise their number facts in fun and practical ways. For example, counting pairs of socks, playing games with dice where they have to use the number bonds, sing number songs (a range of which can be found on U Tube) or play ICT games on the internet such as ‘Hit the Button’. 

What number facts should my child know?

The number facts that children should know in KS1 are:
•    Number bonds to 5
•    Number bonds to 10
•    Number bonds to 100
•    2x, 5x and 10x table

The number facts that children should know in KS2 are:
•    2x,3x,4x,5x,6x,7x, 8x, 9x, 10x, 11x and the 12x table
•    square numbers 
•    cubed numbers
•    equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages