The White Rose Maths
Our school is following the White Rose Maths scheme
'schemes of learning'
A scheme of learning is a clear, time-linked plan for learning.
The schemes are written for year groups and cover the whole school year of learning.
You can view and download the schemes of learning and learning videos completely free of charge on the home learning section of our website
The small steps
We’ve divided each block of knowledge into a series of small learning steps.
Together, these small steps cover all the curriculum content that your child needs to know.
Brain science tells us that your child will remember more by learning maths in small, related chunks.
White Rose also used the best available research to map out the crucial learning steps that will help your child to understand what they are learning clearly.
White Rose Maths helps children develop their conceptual understanding of mathematics by using concrete objects, pictorial representations, and abstract thinking.
Here at Charles Baines Primary School, we use the terms: -
Build it
Draw it
Write it
Concrete (Build it)
is the ‘doing’ stage, using concrete objects to solve problems. It brings concepts to life by allowing children to handle physical objects themselves. Every new abstract concept is learned first with a ‘concrete’ or physical experience. For example:
There are 8 flowers in the vase. Hannah has 2 flowers in her hand. How many flowers are there altogether?
In this problem, the children might first handle actual flowers – the concrete stage – before progressing to handling counters or cubes (like Numicon) which are used to represent the flowers.
Pictorial (Draw it)
is the ‘seeing’ stage, using representations of the objects involved in maths problems. This stage encourages children to make a mental connection between the physical object and abstract levels of understanding, by drawing or looking at pictures, circles, diagrams or models which represent the objects in the problem.
Building or drawing a model makes it easier for children to grasp concepts they traditionally find more difficult, such as fractions, as it helps them visualise the problem and make it more accessible.
For example, for the above problem, the pictorial stage would involve using drawings of flowers, or pictures of objects such as multi-link blocks or counters, to represent the actual object.
Abstract (Write it)
is the ‘symbolic’ stage, where children are able to use abstract symbols to model and solve maths problems. Once a child has demonstrated that they have a solid understanding of the ‘concrete’ and ‘pictorial’ representations of the problem, the teacher can introduce the more ‘abstract’ concept, such as mathematical symbols.
Children are introduced to the concept at a symbolic level, using only numbers, notation, and mathematical symbols, for example +, –, x, / to indicate addition, multiplication, or division.
So, for the following problem:
Jim has 12 cookies. Julie has 8 cookies. How many do they have altogether?
Children at the abstract stage would be able to solve the problem by writing it out as 12 + 8 = 20.
