St Edward’s pupils rise to the equation!

Mathematics is a creative and highly inter-connected discipline. It is essential to everyday life, critical to science, technology and engineering, and necessary for financial literacy and most forms of employment. Our high-quality mathematics education provides a foundation for understanding the world, the ability to reason mathematically, an appreciation of the beauty and power of mathematics, and a sense of enjoyment and curiosity about the subject. Pupils develop competence in Mathematics through discrete lessons and learn to apply number, space, shape and data handling skills through the inquiry-based curriculum framework. From the very youngest pupils in the school up to those leaving us in Year 6, we aim to provide a variety of experiences to encourage boys to reach their full mathematical potential.

In Pre-Prep, we start to help boys develop confidence in mathematics. They will discover that maths runs through all parts of life, from sharing a cake between friends, to building a house to paying for the week’s groceries. In these early years, they begin to develop competency with numbers and measures, and to learn mathematical vocabulary. Direct, hands-on experience is vital in teaching boys, and lessons are dynamic and engaging. Bit by bit, they build skills and confidence, providing a firm base on which to build in the Prep department.

Following on to our older years maths lessons will continue to develop the boys’ calculation skills and capacity to think, reason and solve problems.

They build the ability to solve ever-more complex number problems in a variety of contexts, discussing mathematical ideas and developing mathematical language. We encourage an understanding of Maths through the process of inquiry and experiment, and an appreciation of mathematical patterns and relationships.

With Mrs Hunt our specialist maths teacher lessons at St Edward’s are fun and interactive, with activities such as singing and dancing to the ‘BODMAS’ song. Boys learn best with practical activities; by making, building, drawing patterns, using mathematical resources to aid their leaning visually and kinaesthetically.

Our boys choose their own challenges, with guidance and according to their own ability, and they have the flexibility to move up or down. We grade the difficulty of these challenges like a curry; mild, medium or spicy!

Years 4, 5 and 6 take part in annual Maths challenges at other schools such as Eagle House, Crosfields, Luckley House and The Oratory, to encourage competition in the subject. This year we have sent teams to the Wishford Maths Day where we placed second, The Young Maths Award run by Explore Learning where we were the Regional Winners and The Primary Maths Challenge run by the Mathematical Association where we had 2 pupils win silver medals in their national competition.

St Edward’s pupils are definitely showing their mathematical rigour and love for the subject!