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St John’s C of E Primary School, Walsall

About the School

St John’s C of E Primary School is an extremely popular school in Walsall, with around 375 pupils. The school is rated outstanding by Ofsted and was designated as a government endorsed National College for Teaching and Leadership training teaching school in July 2016. 

St John’s has been a Big Maths partner school since 2012 and celebrated 98% of key stage 2 children working at an expected standard in maths in 2016/17, with 19% working at a greater depth. 

The Challenge

Lead Practitioner at St John’s, Sarah Wynn identified that the school needed a consistent approach to the teaching of maths after using a range of resources and schemes to ill effect: “We liked the Progress Drives within Big Maths, showing small achievable steps and felt that the general ethos of the approach would work. Quite simply, it made sense!”

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Favourite Features of Big Maths

“The consistency of Big Maths makes things simpler for everyone involved. The progress drives, the CLIC sessions, the language and the characters all ensure an easy transition from one class to the next and from one year to the next throughout school.”

“Teachers can see the exact step they need to move the children on, and can see if any gaps need filling. The weekly Beat That challenges provide a continual assessment of both current and prior learning, keeping it all at the forefront of the child’s mind.”

What Do The Children Think?

“The children are ALWAYS keen to get going on the Big Maths Beat That! Challenges They want to beat their scores and know exactly what they need to do to move onto the next challenge.”

“After we have gone through any errors, many children take their challenges home and are then keen to improve their score on the next challenge to take home and show progress.”

"The online planning resources are wonderful - the planning for Big Maths sessions is so much easier than other lessons. And with resources linking to the steps so readily available, we have saved a lot of time not making our own or trawling the internet."

Managing Classes and Tracking Progress

“As a maths lead I use the tracking system a lot and now staff are using it much more for their individual classes. By using intervention groups, we have been able to close the gap for children that Big Maths has identified as not on track. It is easy to use the tracking system and report on exactly where a child is with their learning.”

Talk to us About Big Maths…

Big Maths is the way forward when it comes to teaching mathematics in your school. Contact us now to arrange a call to discuss how to move forward with the best implementation for you. Take the first step towards changing the way you teach maths. It’s time to rip up the rulebook and teach different.