Carrant Brook Junior School

Maths Magic

We have now launched an exciting new target system, Maths Magic, to help develop the understanding of maths at Carrant Brook. The system is designed to improve the mental recall of number facts, including the times tables, which will enable our pupils to meet the increased challenges of the New National Curriculum. The New Curriculum has a much greater focus on mental calculation and children are expected to be able to work out a range of mathematical problems without using a written method. The target booklets track progression in basic number skills using all operations – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  The children will develop instant recall skills in all the objectives – they should not be taking time to work out the answer to each question, they need to know it instantly.

The Maths Magic system targets get progressively more challenging through the school. There are five stages in total:

• Number Cruncher
• Mathmagician’s Apprentice
• Math-a-Magician
• Wizard-in-Training
• Maths Whizz

We will be carefully assessing the current knowledge and understanding of each pupil to make sure that they all start at the correct stage of the process. At each new stage your child will receive a new target booklet, which explains what s/he need to do in order to move forward. For example:

“As a Math-a-Magician, you also develop your understanding of doubling and halving. First you will practise doubling any 2 digit number, for example double 56 is 112. You might do this by partitioning into tens and units, for example double 50 is 100, and double 6 is 12, so altogether double 56 is 112. This should be done quickly and in your head.”

Children should practise rapid recall of facts on a frequent and regular basis, ideally for 10 minutes every day. The class teacher can then assess when children are ready to move on to the next target. There are many maths resources available to access online which will help to meet some of the targets. We are also in the process of developing a bank of resources to use at school.

We appreciate your support and hope that you enjoy working on the targets at home as much as we will in school!