New Waltham Academy Pupil Voice

Maths

We value the views of our pupils and hold termly informal chats with groups of pupils from EYFS - Year 6 to hear what they think about each subject. We worked with mixed groups of children so that we get opinions and ideas from throughout the school.

February 2024

In our pupil voice this term, we focused on what the children enjoy about their maths lessons. Teachers also held discussions with the children about what they had voiced previously (see February 2023) and actions subject leaders have made, to act upon some of these things. Children understand that leaders cannot change everything, but that their voice and opinions are taken into consideration.

February 2023

What is maths?

Counting, number bonds, times tables, arithmetic questions, word problems, working out problems in your head, four operations, helping each other to answer questions.

Feedback

Children as a whole said they enjoy maths and find it fun. Early years said they like the 5s frame and like going on numbots. KS1 said they enjoy counting using the cubes, they like the part-part whole method and adding.

KS2 the majority said they enjoy TTrockstars because they like going on jamming, it helps them learn their times tables and they can earn coins to buy outfits for their rockstar.

Times tables - a lot said they thought certain tables were tricky to learn and found it hard. Measurements was a key area that children said they didn’t like – they said it was hard.  

When asked to share their favourite piece of work, KS1 often chose work that involved using practical equipment like money, dice, number lines.

KS1 said that they likes part-part whole method because it helps they understand numbers.

 KS1 said that they liked counting with the cubes piece of work as they got to do this with a partner.

KS2 said they enjoy doing the worksheets in their books and like doing challenges.

First, we discussed the question 'What is Maths?' and we collected our thoughts and ideas. We gathered these together by working collaboratively and created a word cloud using all of the words that we associate with maths. These ideas are displayed below: