We believe that mastery is the fundamental belief that every child can access Maths.

We follow the national curriculum and have invested in a ‘Maths Mastery Approach’ using the ‘Maths No Problem scheme.’

We seek to reclaim Maths at Co-op Academy Portland by placing our pupils at the core: we understand that children’s perception of themselves drives achievement, therefore the starting point is to deal with pupils’ perception and a safe learning environment is part of changing perception. 

Our curriculum is inclusive and strives to enable all pupils, including those with SEND and those who are disadvantaged, to achieve.  At Co-op Academy Portland, inclusive maths lessons give every child the chance to take part in lessons and feel valued. It’s a crucial responsibility to ensure everyone has fair access to the curriculum. At Co-op Academy Portland, all practitioners are capable of being a diversity, equality, and inclusion champion, by implementing inclusive teaching in the maths classroom. As teachers, we provide the right scaffold to enable pupils to reach their learning and all our children learn from the same ‘diet’.  

How do we create accessibility at Co-op Academy Portland?

• Conversation: Explorative discussion is a large portion of the maths lesson which is initiated through the anchor task. The anchor task is the opportunity to develop language, which is vital as a strong investment in the discussion will help to develop the pupil’s understanding of new concepts.
• Context: The contextualisation of maths' concepts is an opportunity to engage pupils. This can take the form as a tangible resource or a relatable experience. 
• Concrete: Concrete and action-based representation using manipulatives like money, counters, cubes, base ten blocks and dice are used to explore and solve problems — think of it as the ‘doing’ stage.

At Co-op Academy Portland, planning Maths is key. Daily Maths lessons are carefully planned to ensure misconceptions and ‘threats’ to learning are identified. All lessons follow a general structure: 

• Pupils explore the anchor task.
• Teachers help to structure thinking by comparing approaches. 
• Pupils consolidate through practice.
• Students journal their approach. 

Problem-solving, fluency, and relational understanding are at the heart of the scheme. It uses the Concrete Pictorial Abstract (CPA) approach and allows pupils to spend enough time to fully explore a topic, reinforcing it with practice, before moving on to the next one.  All ideas are built on previous knowledge and pupils have ample opportunity to develop relationships between topics.

Co-op Academy Portland’s core values and Ways of Being are continually developed through all maths learning experiences.

Our Maths Lead is supported by our Executive Teacher Mr Leathers.