We are a pioneering school utilising an exciting, child-friendly approach to children’s wellbeing education. The programme we use is iSpace Wellbeing.
The wellbeing curriculum offers a language and toolkit to help children, teachers and parents to start the conversation with the children about their wellbeing and mental health. This is in line with the new government requirements that primary schools must discuss children’s mental health and wellbeing.
iSpace Wellbeing values the importance of providing children with strategies and tools to help them to overcome challenges and to thrive despite failure. The framework and toolkit helps to prepare them to live life ready.
iSpace, which stands for ‘I stop, I pause, I calm everything’ is themed around a galaxy of planets and is built on three core beliefs about what an effective wellbeing curriculum needs to be – preventative, consistent and fun to teach and learn. This approach aims to enhance confidence, capability and creativity and to boost emotional intelligence, resilience and self-worth. Our children are taught that it is ‘okay’ not to feel okay, and that talking about our emotions can help us to become more resourceful and overcome challenges. ISpace is incorporated into the daily routine for all children from Reception to Year 6.
Every month the whole school focuses on a different “planet of emotions”. There are 12 planets in total: Planet wellbeing, planet happiness, planet physical, planet character building, planet Heads Up, planet diversity, planet resilience and planet problem solving.
Below are a list of some of the language that we encourage the children to use to talk about their feelings:
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Pop unimportant thoughts Let go things which you can do nothing about and which may not happen Accept challenges Calm and control thoughts in the face of difficulties. Enjoy all positive thoughts. |
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Has your rocket launched or is it on the ground? |
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How angry are you feeling? |
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How can you flip that around? What do you want to stick with and what do you want to flip? |
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What is in your toolbox to help you work this out? (confidence belt (I am… I can..), Ispace breathing, asking for help, talking to a friend or close adult, focusing on the positive things, PACE (let go of things that might not happen and which I cannot change.) |
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Check in with your backpack. How are you feeling? |
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Ask for help |
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I am, I can, I will… |
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niggle (something small). Can you squish it, flip it, squash it, stamp on it? |
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What do you want to grow (good aspects of your character) and what do you want to throw? Are you aiming to be good? |
For further information, please visit the iSpace website https://ispacewellbeing.com/
Mathematics Mastery
At Brentfield Primary School, we teach mathematics following the Mathematics Mastery Programme. This programme is a way of building in enjoyment, resilience and understanding of mathematics.
- By following Mathematics Mastery we aim to develop:
- An enjoyment and curiosity of mathematics and for children to feel confident to become successful.
- Positive attitudes, confidence and competence by matching the task to the child.
- A confidence to communicate ideas both in written form and orally.
- Independent and collaborative ways of working, encouraging children to share ideas and solve problems together.
- A wide range of mathematical vocabulary modelled and used in the classroom environment.
- The children’s ability to recall mental facts accurately and quickly and using effective written calculation methods.
- Children’s logical thinking, reasoning skills and ability to problem solve, as transferable life skills.
- Enjoyment and enthusiasm for learning through practical activity, exploration and discussion.
- The ability to solve problems through decision-making and reasoning in a range of contexts.
- Challenge through high expectations and focussed, differentiated learning.
- Achieve increased fluency with numbers.
- Gain a deeper understanding of mathematical skills.
- Solve problems in unfamiliar contexts.
- Develop their mathematical thinking.
- Strengthen their mathematical vocabulary, enabling them to explain and reason their thinking.
- Use and identify multiple representations-including objects, pictures, numbers and symbols.
What is Maths Mastery?
The ‘mastery approach’ to teaching maths is the underlying principle of Mathematics Mastery. Instead of learning mathematical procedures by rote, pupils are encouraged to build a deep conceptual understanding of concepts which will enable them to apply their learning in different situations.
The curriculum is designed to make sure that the requirements of the National Curriculum for England are fully met. Each year’s curriculum includes all of the National Curriculum objectives for that year. Mathematics Mastery uses three key principles to deepen pupils’ understanding:
- Pupils’ conceptual understanding is developed through the use of multiple concrete and pictorial representations. Indeed, a key part of a ‘deep understanding’ in maths is being able to represent ideas in lots of different ways.
- Depth of understanding is also developed through pupils’ communication about maths using the correct mathematical language. When pupils are asked to explain, justify and prove their ideas they are deepening their understanding of a concept.
- Another way of developing a depth of understanding is by encouraging pupils to think mathematically. This is done by providing lots of opportunities for pupils to investigate planned open questions that require them to sort and compare, seek patterns and look for rules.
Problem solving is at the heart of the mastery approach, sufficient time is dedicated to each new concept or skill, so every pupil can gain the reasoning they need to solve new problems in unfamiliar contexts. All pupils are expected to solve the same investigations by the end of the lesson, meaning the key concepts and objectives are met by all pupils. Instead of accelerating higher attainers onto new content, lessons are differentiated through depth, to develop pupils’ conceptual understanding.
The maths mastery approach is built upon 3 key concepts:
- Conceptual understanding.
- Language and communication.
- Mathematical thinking.
Progression of Skills
Curriculum Maps
Maths Meetings
An important aspect of Mathematics Mastery is the daily Maths Meeting, which is used to consolidate key areas of mathematics in the class. Maths Meetings provide an opportunity to teach and revise ‘general knowledge maths’ which may not explicitly be covered during the maths lesson, and also allows the daily integration of maths into the surrounding environment. This means that pupils are practising concepts and skills on a regular basis, meaning they are continually building on their mastery of these concepts.
Singing and chanting form an integral part of the Maths Meetings and each class has a Maths Meeting display to use as a visual structure for the pupils to become familiar with. The elements of maths covered in Maths Meetings is fun and enjoyable for pupils, so it is important that pupils appreciate, learn from and relish these experiences.
TTRockstars
Alongside Mathematics Mastery Brentfield Primary use TTRockstars. Times Tables Rock Stars is a carefully sequenced programme of daily times tables practice. Each week concentrates on a different times table, with a recommended consolidation week for rehearsing the tables that have recently been practised every third week or so. Children play a timed game on the website, answering multiplication and division questions. At the end of the session, the children will see how many questions they answered and their average speed for answering.
TTRockstars Rewards
TTRockstars offers many rewards and certificates.
- After each game, the children will awarded a ‘Rock Status’ based on their speed.
- When children move on to the next ‘Rock Status’, they will be awarded with a certificate to recognise this.
- Pupils will often be set a ‘Rock Battle’ where children work in allocated teams to compete to answer the most questions correctly over a period of time. The three children who scored the highest amount of points in each team by the end of the ‘Battle’ will receive a certificate.
- At the end of each term the five pupils across the school who answer questions with the fastest speed will receive a certificate in assembly.
All children from Year 2-6 have logins and we encourage them to use the website at home every day for at least 10 minutes.
At Brentfield, we put learning at the heart of everything we do. We support our children in gaining both the academic and the life skills to become effective communicators and successful global citizens. We believe that language and communication is at the root of all learning and is something to be fostered and developed at all stages.
The development of children’s reading is crucial to their success across the curriculum. To facilitate our children’s’ language and communication skills, we want all children to leave the school passionate about reading and develop a love of books.
Throughout their time at Brentfield, children are exposed to a carefully selected range of rich and challenging texts which expose them to a variety of genres.
Children and parents are encouraged to use our newly designed library and read together.
For more information about how we teach reading at the school please click on the link below.