Our Vision
At Alfreton Park School, we believe mathematics is a vital life skill that helps pupils make sense of the world. It enables them to recognise relationships and patterns, develop logical reasoning, solve problems, and think creatively. Mathematics supports learning across the curriculum and promotes independence in everyday life.
Our Maths Curriculum plays an essential role in preparing pupils for adulthood, supporting independence, employment, and meaningful participation in their community. We recognise the diverse needs of our learners and are committed to providing practical, accessible, and meaningful mathematical experiences grounded in hands-on exploration and real-life application.
We deliver our curriculum through an adapted version of White Rose, ensuring a broad, balanced, and ambitious offer with clearly sequenced end points across all four pathways.
Pre-Formal, Informal & Semi-Formal Pathways
Our approach in these pathways is personalised and responsive to pupils’ developmental stages and preferred learning styles. We aim to:
- Build early mathematical understanding through experiences of change, pattern, anticipation, cause–effect, and object permanence.
- Embed mathematical learning within daily routines such as snack times, dressing, movement, personal care, and play.
- Provide sensory-rich opportunities that allow pupils to explore ideas through touch, sound, movement, and visual contrast.
- Prioritise experiential learning before introducing symbolic or abstract concepts.
- Offer frequent repetition and varied practice to strengthen and generalise understanding.
- Support communication using AAC, objects of reference, intensive interaction, and consistent cues.
- Break learning into small, achievable steps and celebrate progress in attention, anticipation, and purposeful engagement.
- Use multi-sensory prompts and scaffolding, including hand-under-hand support and structured environments, to enable active participation.
- Assess progress holistically, valuing engagement, independence, responsiveness, and functional use of skills.
Formal Pathway
Our teaching in the Formal Pathway provides a structured, progressive approach that builds pupils’ confidence, fluency, and independence in mathematical thinking. Learning is carefully sequenced, supported by concrete and visual resources, and continually linked to real-life contexts to ensure relevance and deep understanding.
We aim for pupils to:
- Develop number sense and understand the number system.
- Recall and use number facts such as number bonds and multiplication tables.
- Use manipulatives and visual representations to support reasoning and problem-solving.
- Calculate accurately and efficiently using mental, written, and practical strategies.
- Interpret problems and select appropriate operations to solve them.
- Explain their thinking using appropriate mathematical vocabulary.
- Estimate, judge whether answers are reasonable, and check their work.
- Interpret and present information using graphs, charts, tables, and diagrams.
- Apply mathematical knowledge confidently across the curriculum and in everyday contexts.
