What happens at the start of Year 7?

Students entering in Year 7 are placed into groups based on data from primary schools as well as a baseline assessment that they sit at the start of year 7. The groups are tiered, but with many parallel groups, giving all students the opportunity to be challenged at a high level. The groups are reviewed periodically in order to maximise the students’ progress.

What do students learn?

Students begin following the White Rose Maths scheme in year 7. Many students will have followed this same scheme in primary schools. This scheme is nationally used and built around mastery. The curriculum offers carefully considered sequential learning in small steps, that has been coupled with rigorous low stakes formative assessment and summative assessments in order to ensure knowledge is not just encountered but embedded in student’s long term memory.

The lessons involve problem-solving, fluency and reasoning aspects, which are proven to be essential skills for students to develop. Within this, students are given strategies to approach problem-solving questions, for example using bar modelling. There are also real-life contextualised questions to help students explore how their mathematical progression can be used in wider contexts.

What content is covered?

• Sequences
• Understand and use algebraic notation
• Equality and equivalence
• Place value and ordering integers and decimals
• Fraction, decimal and percentage equivalence
• Solving problems with addition and subtraction
• Solving problems with multiplication and division
• Fractions and percentages of amounts
• Operations and equations with directed number
• Addition and subtraction of fractions
• Constructing, measuring and using geometric notation
• Developing geometric reasoning
• Developing number sense
• Sets and probability
• Prime numbers and proof

Each chapter is made up of a number of interconnected small steps. These can be found in detail in the attached sheet. 

What can you do to help?

The White Rose Maths scheme has many home learning videos that you can watch at home along with the students. Each chapter is made up of a number of interconnected small steps. These can be found here:
https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning?year=year-7

Each student also has a login to the MathsWatch website, https://vle.mathswatch.co.uk. This is a very useful tool for them to enhance their skills and plug gaps in knowledge. It is recommended that students log in to this on a regular basis.

Pupil login – Students are given their username at the start of the year
Pupil password – pupil date of birth written in the following format: dd/mm/yyyy

What do we do to help?

Students have four hours of Maths lessons per week. Students are also offered additional support and are always encouraged to speak to their teachers if they have any questions and/or require further help. Homework is set on a weekly basis and this usually takes the form of either a task on the MathsWatch website, with problems based on work completed that week in class and on previous topics studied.