Our Maths Experience

At Kingsbury our children access an exciting and multi-sensory curriculum. Our aim for the children is to reach their own individual potential but also to learn skills that will help them the most in the future to be as independent as they could possibly be. At Kingsbury we teach functional maths skills as a priority. A functional understanding of number is known to help develop self esteem and independence in the future. All the children at Kingsbury are totally individual, their Personal Learning Outcomes based on their EHCP’s show the mini targets to achieve certain skills, alongside this we teach maths skills in a multi sensory way which allows the children to use maths skills in a real life context. We believe that children need to have a good foundation of numbers 1-10 before they can move on to more complex principles of Mathematics. Research shows that if you don’t have a good foundation of number skills you cannot generalise skills you are taught past this as you don’t have solid understanding of what it actually means. Many of our children can recite many number facts by rote however find it a challenge to use these skills in real life situations, at Kingsbury we aim to give our children a really good foundation of skills that they can use in the future to increase their self- esteem and independence. We also want our children to have fun and they learn by playing, exploring and active learning. Our overall aim is for children to be creative and be able to problem solve in real life situations. The staff at Kingsbury strive to enable the children through support and our environment to adapt our teaching to suit the children’s interests and build their learning over time.

A Brief Look at Maths in Kingsbury ...

In each pathway at Kingsbury maths will look different, from sensory exploration to more formal mathematical methods. Those who are able to access more formal methods will still learn in a semi formal way through active learning, play and real-life situations. Children will develop their mathematical knowledge from sensory exploration, to concrete manipulatives, to more abstract concepts. Fundamentally, play and exploration across the whole curriculum allows children to make connections in their brain that is key to early mathematical thinking. It is only through children refining their ideas through play that children can make these connections.

At Kingsbury Sensory exploration is absolutely key to our curriculum they help to develop our ‘mathematical senses’ which include:

Sense of size
Sense of quantity (exhibited in number sense)
Senses of difference
Senses of space – orientation, location and dimension
Senses of movement – direction and speed
Sense of rhythm and sequence
Senses of time – interval – duration
Senses of possession or loss

(Les Staves, Very Special Maths 2019)

Maths in our school may look like comparing objects, noticing when objects have been removed from a set, an awareness of the children’s own spatial awareness and orientation, interest in high contrast images and features, recognising that objects exist and not just part of the background and an awareness of people’s ability to make changes to their environment eg. Cause and effect.

Maths at our school is also entwined in social, communication and language skills. This is how the children can express concepts and share ideas, but also allows them to learn and teach skills that enable them to learn such as through Attention Autism sessions. Engagement is also key to our curriculum without engagement and an environment which promotes it, learning cannot take place. In Kingsbury we develop this through adult modelling and mirroring. Above all we recognise each child is completely unique, and as such follow their lead and interests; to allow them to make mistakes and explore in a safe environment to develop new connections, both in their own brains and with their peers.

Maths in Becky's Class