Mastery at Winterbourne Earls

At Winterbourne Earls we believe that Mastery in maths is vital to develop and display a child's understanding of maths in the National Curriculum. Each class strives to embed mastery activities into their curriculum in order to display solid understanding of concepts.

We aim to follow the process throughout all year groups in order to understand new concepts.

Concrete stage- using manipulatives and concrete objects to help with learning

Representational/ Pictorial- using diagrams and pictures to help

Abstract- using numbers, symbols and writing for maths problems and calculations

What is Mastery?

Since mastery is what we want pupils to acquire (or go on acquiring), rather than teachers to demonstrate, we use the phrase ‘teaching for mastery’ to describe the range of elements of classroom practice and school organisation that combine to give pupils the best chances of mastering mathematics.

And mastering maths means acquiring a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject. At any one point in a pupil’s journey through school, achieving mastery is taken to mean acquiring a solid enough understanding of the maths that’s been taught to enable him/her move on to more advanced material. (taken from NCETM website)