The whole school maths target for the Spring term is 'written methods of subtraction'

What are the objectives of the target? (Why are we doing this?)

• By asking children to demonstrate the methods they would instinctively choose to tackle a task and asking teachers to assess evidence against the calculation policy, the school hopes to achieve the following:
• Help staff become more familiar with the calculations policy to ensure coherence in methods being taught throughout the primary school career of a pupil
• Promote discussion about teaching methods & ensure that the methods in the current policy documents are useful and effective, and if not, to adapt the policies.
• Ensure children are making progress through the developmental stages of learning standard written methods of calculation
• Promote discussion of intervention strategies should children not be progressing through the stages at a satisfactory rate through daily classroom teaching & learning

Do I need to do any other maths assessment?

• Yes, this is the process for the current maths target areas for the school only - written methods of calculation.
• You will still need to monitor and assess the other areas of the maths curriculum as usual!

What do I have to do?

• Set children in your class a small selection of questions that will allow them to demonstrate their method of written subtraction
• Mark the responses as if you were marking a normal piece of maths work - Comments should be written for the child to read!
• Assess their responses against the subtraction policy document which is based upon the HWPS subtraction calculation policy written by Miss Potts - The document should be stuck in the back of the book
• Highlight the method of subtraction used by the child and initial and date your annotations
• Talk about the assessment task with your year group and use the results to plan for future teaching and learning of subtracton

What about children who aren't at the stage of demonstrating standard written calculation methods?

• See this entry on the main staff page

What do I do if children are using a different method?

• Children may be at a stage where they are using a transitional method that falls between methods in the policy document (eg, partitioning horizontally). It is important that children are seen as working towards using a method on the policy document to ensure that they develop confidence using a method that will ultimately scale to larger numbers and decimals. Annotate the document by writing "non-standard method" next to the closest match. An appropriate follow-up intervention or teaching point should be planned to help the child progress towards a standard method

What do I do if a child is in year 'X' but is using a method from year 'Y'?

• The policy should be seen as outlining stages in the development of learning written calculation methods, not as showing which methods should be used or taught during a specific year. The numbers at the left of the columns indicate the expected year in which a child will be using a method, but children will, of course, progress at different rates and be at different stages of the learning process in a given year group. For example, children in the current year 6 cohort are using methods indicated as expected in Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, Y5 and Y6!

What do I do if a child has used a method, but the answer is incorrect?

• Children should be assessed as using a method only if it is used accurately and consistently - look for evidence of a method that appears earlier in the progression that has been used correctly

The methods in year 'X' and year 'Y' look similar - what's the difference?

• A calculation policy should outline a progression of skills and promote transition from early methods of recording observations or calculations towards more formal and scalable methods. As such, many of the methods taught in an earlier year will continue to be consolidated and adpated in later years. However, expectations do change from year to year so check to see if the size of the values in the examples has changed (eg. from U to TU or from TU to HTU), or if the order of the stages of the calculation has changed (eg. smallest number first or largest number first).

What do I do if a child has not shown any working or has done the calculations mentally?

• Set the child a more challenging task that allows them to demonstrate their use of written calculation methods

Which method should I teach my class?

• There is no single method that children should be taught in a given year group. After an assessment of a child's chosen method of calculation has been made, activities should be planned to move the child towards using the next calculation method in the policy