Case Study
Oak View Academy, Winsford, Cheshire
School’s position prior to working with First4Maths Academy
A review of our maths curriculum found that over time, staff had become over reliant on a commercially produced scheme of learning that was very prescriptive with the speed of progression. The wide use of worksheets was found to be cognitively overloading many of our pupils, who found the level of reading required too demanding. Consequently, there was a lack of adaptive teaching, with varied scaffolding models not widely used to meet pupils’ learning needs. Furthermore, class teachers felt there was a fixed goal to reach the end of each term, having completed all of the units mapped across the term. There were insufficient opportunities to identify gaps in knowledge and skills.
School’s position now
Headteacher Helen Bebbington says,
“After researching a variety of different mathematical approaches and curriculum resources we chose to implement First4Maths Academy. We spoke to colleagues across our Trust of schools who all recommended this curriculum wholeheartedly. We favoured this approach as it enables teachers to teach units of work that whilst securely have coverage of the entire National Curriculum, but importantly prioritise the DfE ready to Progress statements. Teachers are able to have the flexibility to consider the varying needs of their cohort before determining how many weeks they spend on each unit. They use the First4Maths Academy planning documents as a support tool, rather than a prescriptive scheme.
All staff, both teachers and teaching assistants have immediate access to high quality and relevant CPD that is tailor made to their year group. The teaching videos clearly model to staff the effective use of concrete resources and how to embed fluency. As a consequence, all children, including SEND are able to access the learning positively and have a high sense of achievement. Pupil voice is now much improved with children enthused. In our recent Ofsted report the subject specific CPD was highly praised by the inspection team. Leaders were able to articulate the curriculum intent, implementation and impact with confidence and clarity. This was evidenced in the children’s books and by both pupil and staff voice. The support, guidance and expertise from First4Maths Academy has enabled our school to ensure our pupils are confident mathematicians who experience the richness of an exciting and varied mathematics curriculum.”