Mathematics in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
The children will be learning to:
  • develop an understanding of maths through stories, songs, games and imaginative play;
  • become comfortable with numbers and with ideas such as 'heavier than' or 'bigger’;
  • be aware of shapes and space
It is made up of two main areas:
  • Numbers
  • Shape, space and measures
Maths will be taught in a purposeful, practical way and children will use play and exploration to acquire mathematical skills.
A large majority of mathematical work is practical and learning will happen in many different contexts around the classroom and outside.
Some whole class work exploring mathematical concepts will be teacher led and children can also freely explore these concepts through a variety of different activities and resources set up each day.
Singapore Maths

This is changing maths in our school. Maths has been and is ADASP focus and we are all working hard to improve standards across three key areas: learning environment, gender and place value.
The maths mastery approach is marked by careful planning, ensuring no pupil’s understanding is left to chance. It is already used in a number of England’s schools following a pioneering teacher exchange programme between England and Shanghai led by a network of maths hubs.

Maths mastery involves children being taught as a whole class, building depth of understanding of the structure of maths, supported by the use of high-quality textbooks, and began being used in England in 2014.

Year 1 pupils are introduced to all 4 functions and to basic fractions. In year 2, basic columnar addition and subtraction is studied, with carrying and borrowing in year 3. In year 2 the teaching of times tables begins, and pupils are expected to know all of the times tables up to 12 x 12 by year 4.

Instant recall of facts like times tables is crucial because the working memory is small and so they need to be committed to long term memory, as explained by Daniel Willingham in his book ‘Why don’t students like school’. Such recall from long term memory is essential to be able to add fractions, and perform long multiplication and division, which pupils will be taught in year 5 and year 6. The year by year approach sets out greater clarity and the focus on fluency in the essentials of maths allows time for pupils to practise more to ensure deep knowledge. We are also expecting the majority of pupils to move through programmes of study at roughly the same pace.

(taken from