Reading, Writing and Maths

Lessons are well planned and teachers set clear tasks that support pupils’ learning well. All pupils have equal access to learning opportunities. Reading and writing are developed well across different subjects. Teachers develop pupils’ understanding of new mathematical concepts well.

Ofsted 2017

At Mill Rythe Infants our values ‘Nurture, Inspire, Challenge’ are fully embedded throughout our curriculum in each year group. We are proud to have created a curriculum which caters to each child’s individual needs in Reading, Writing and Maths.

We achieve this by assessing the work your child has completed each day and steering them towards their own next step to help build towards a bigger learning picture. This means that our children experience working with different adults and children each day, building their independence and resilience. This is supported by a wide-ranging curriculum offering sports competitions, in-depth history studies, cookery and art. We cover all aspects of the National Curriculum and link our Reading, Writing and Maths throughout.

We utilise a range of Reading schemes to support our children in school through Guided Reading sessions, including Phonics Bug, Fireflies, Treetops, ORT and Rigby Star. We also use Glow worms poetry books. Each child will be read with a minimum of once a week in Year R, moving on to twice a week by the end of year 2. For further information regarding our reading provision, please see the embedded leaflet below.

As you will know, we have recently invested in fully decodable books (Phonics Bug) for the children to use in school in Guided Reading. We have also invested in these for home readers as well as providing each child with access to the books as an online reading system for you to use at home. This can be accessed on

https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/login?c=0

Each child is given log in details, along with a letter explaining how to use the ‘Phonics Bug’ system. Please ensure that the log ins are typed correctly (typically this would be the child’s first name and initial of their surname) and that the school code is also correct. Please note that the school code is ‘Q W L 7’ in lower case letters. If you have any queries about this, please speak to your child’s class teacher.

The teachers utilise regular reading assessments to ensure your child is making progress and will inform you when they are ready to move onto a different colour band. Their colour band is linked to their word recognition, inference, comprehension and word understanding skills. The schemes we use for our home readers include ORT Phonics and Phonics Bug.

For a more in-depth view of your child’s curriculum, please see the ‘Curriculum’ heading.

 

Maths Curriculum at Mill-Rythe Infant School

 

Nurture, Inspire, Challenge

At Mill Rythe Infant School, we aim for our pupils to develop secure foundations within the mathematics curriculum so that they can become proficient mathematicians, who can retain and easily apply new concepts, ready for the next phase of their learning. The national curriculum aims to ensure all pupils become fluent in maths, are able to reason mathematically and can solve problems both within maths and other subject areas.

The curriculum is domains are:

  • Number – Number and Place Value
  • Number – Addition and Subtraction
  • Number – Multiplication and Division
  • Fractions
  • Measurement
  • Geometry

Pupils at Mill Rythe Infants, follow a clearly planned curriculum that is carefully sequenced and allows pupils to build on prior learning and make links to new learning.  The mathematics curriculum is based on Hampshire planning documents and is organised into learning pathways that allow children to consolidate and enrich their learning.

This pathway directly feeds into the summative assessment system so that pupil learning is accurately tracked.  All pupils are appropriately challenged in their learning whilst the curriculum is adjusted to meet the needs of individual learners including those with SEND.  Each learning sequence begins with a cold task which assesses the prior knowledge and ends with a hot task that assesses pupil progress at the end of the learning sequence.

All maths learning is supported through the use of models and images and a concrete, pictorial or abstract approach to secure children’s conceptual understanding.  All teaching staff work closely within teams to assess the progress of individual pupils.

Learning letters give guidance for families so they can support pupils at home.  Websites that support pupils learning in maths include:

https://nrich.maths.org/

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button