“Mathematics expresses values that reflect the cosmos, including orderliness, balance, harmony, logic, and abstract beauty.” - Deepak Chopra

 The Mathematics Department at Walthamstow Academy is dedicated to inspiring each and every student to achieve their academic potential. It also seeks to help young people develop life skills, through reasoning and also helping them to become fluent in the universal language of numbers. Alongside curricular teaching, the department encourages students to learn how to find numbers and aspects of mathematics in every subject and all aspects of their lives.

The purpose of the maths curriculum is to provide a secure understanding of mathematical concepts, from basic principles of mathematics to complex topics that combine several areas of study into a single question. The curriculum promotes retention of knowledge and a depth of learning rather than an accelerated curriculum, resulting in pupils who are confident in taking their studies further into sixth form, university and beyond.

In all year groups, there is an intentional focus on numeracy which will support pupils not only in their study of maths but will also enable them to access mathematical questions in other subjects.

Here we explore these principles in the context of the maths curriculum:

• Entitlement: All pupils in maths are exposed to extensive number, algebra, geometry, proportion, and statistics content and are not taught on separate pathways until Key Stage 4. This ensures that all pupils can access all areas of maths and have time to develop their skills before limiting their entitlement to Higher maths.

• Coherence: Our curriculum has been carefully sequenced to ensure that knowledge is revisited without having a spiral curriculum, and to ensure that classic misconceptions between topic areas are avoided.

• Mastery: Mathematical concepts are taught in-depth and continually revisited through careful interleaving of content into future teaching topics. The focus on retention of knowledge is at the core of the maths curriculum; the mastery approach supports this.

 • Adaptability: Teachers are provided with a fully resourced curriculum that will meet the expectations of the maths curriculum in Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. Teachers are expected to adapt these resources and have autonomy in the way they are delivered in the classroom.

• Representation: Maths is universal, providing all pupils with an elegant and logical way of viewing the world. Where our resources include names and places, these have been selected to be inclusive. We believe that a secure understanding of maths is an essential starting point for all young people.

• Education with character: Mathematics is a common language in which all pupils can solve, analyse, and problem solve. Our curriculum supports pupils to build logical reasoning, critical thinking and is mentally rigorous