Maths
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Mr Ben Davies
Maths Lead
Big Maths puts the child at the heart of the learning experience.
Here at Heamoor we use the 'Big Maths' systematic approach to teaching, planning and assessing mathematics. Big Maths is a teaching approach that makes progress in maths easy and fun. Big Maths has been extremely successful both nationally and internationally with thousands of children learning through daily BIG Maths ‘CLIC’ sessions and the weekly ‘Beat That!’ challenges.
Big Maths firstly answers the question, ‘How do we get children properly numerate as they journey through school?’ It provides us with an accurate and simple, but highly effective, framework that guarantees numeracy progress. This framework is known as CLIC (Counting, Learn Its, It’s Nothing New and Calculation) and is characterised by accurate steps of progression (known as Progress Drives) that make new learning easy and obvious to children by cashing in on the timeless natural laws of Maths.
Big Maths is therefore a rigorous, systematic and structured approach that provides children with a fun and lively experience as they learn through jingles, songs, games and the Big Maths characters.
Don't be surprised if your children come home talking about Clic, Pom, Pim, Squigglesworth or Count Fourways. They will be talking about Big Maths which is being introduced throughout Heamoor School.
Big Maths helps children to understand the links between core numeracy (the basic principles that underly all maths) and outer numeracy which is the application of these core principles.
C L I C Sessions
CLIC stands for ‘Counting’, ‘Learn Its’, ‘It’s Nothing New’ and ‘Calculation’. Maths lessons contain each of these elements.
Counting:
Children will count forwards and backwards in all kinds of steps depending on their level e.g. in 1s, 2s, 3s, 6s or even 25s! When practising counting at home with your child, make sure you go forwards and backwards. Don’t always start at 0 – make sure they can count on from 75 to 106 for example.
‘Learn Its’:
‘Learn Its’ are addition facts and times tables facts. There are 72 Learns Its in total; 36 addition Learn Its and 36 multiplication Learn Its. These are facts that children need to learn off by heart, so when they are asked ‘What is 6+4 ?’ they are able to give the answer as quickly as they would be able to tell you their name. As soon as they know 3x5=15 they also know 5x3=15 (This is known as a ‘Switcher’).
It’s Nothing New:
This is the most important aspect of CLIC. It is the way children become successful and properly numerate. The idea that 5-things and 3-things are always 8-things is a fundamental concept. Once children understand this concept, we can change the ‘thing’ to other units, e.g. ‘tens’, so that 5 tens + 3 tens = 8 tens. Children begin to learn the concept by counting random unit e.g. bananas, aliens, cats etc. It then becomes much easier to use standard measures such as ml, m, cm, kg, whilst understanding the underlying number concepts.
Calculation:
How can you help your child?
Big Maths is a very useful tool to help children become numerate… but we still need your support at home.
- Help your child practise their Learn Its at home – a few minutes a day is all you need.
- Insist that numbers are written the correct way round.
- Congratulate your child if their Big Maths score goes up!
- Make maths a positive experience!
The main learning focus has three elements to it: Teach, Learn, Understand. This provides children with an opportunity to take part in guided, paired and independent learning, leading to a differentiated independent task featuring fluency, reasoning and problem solving questions. We then come together to share our understanding of the learning objective, through discussion and questioning to deepen new understanding.