Maths and English

Reading is an extremely important element of education and should be encountered every day. At Knowsley Central School, we appreciate that each child is different and therefore different approaches need to be employed to ensure all children have access to reading opportunities.  Where appropriate we follow Twinkl Phonics and support this with additional resources from Ann Sullivan’s Phonics for pupils with SEN scheme.  Phonics is taught in small groups and staff incorporate a variety of teaching methods  to support pupils reading.  For children at the pre-reading stage, play and sensory based activities are incorporated into teaching to help support early reading skills. At this emergent literacy stage, children begin developing initial skills that support reading such as sound discrimination,  phonological awareness, print principles, and early writing.  For those children who can, independent reading is completed on a daily basis and children follow the Oxford Reading Tree Scheme. Where we feel children need a little more help with their reading we use Thriving Reading to offer further support. Throughout school, reading is supported in a variety of ways including sensory stories, story sacks, colourful semantics and Blank Level questioning.

For children at the earliest stage of writing, sensory mark making provides them with opportunities to be able to explore form, pattern, line and tracking. It enables children to develop the early skills of moving from left to right, associating own movements to marks made. Children also take part in Dough Disco on a daily basis to help improve fine motor skills.  As they develop mark making becomes more purposeful and allows children a wealth of opportunities to investigate writing for a purpose, developing control in using tools and creating marks such as vertical, horizontal patterns and simple shapes. We promote and encourage pupils in the early acquisition of these skills through dedicated mark making areas within each classroom. Writing and mark making is also celebrated across the school with teachers encouraged to use pupils own writing and mark making on display where possible. We have a well-structured progressive handwriting programme focusing on the whole child, their needs and abilities. With specialist support and provision, pupils’ experience a multi-sensory, holistic approach to develop fine and gross motor skills on a daily basis, supporting the development of future pencil grasps when the pupil is ready. All pupils have access to Finger Gyms which were designed in collaboration with an Occupational Therapist to improve fine motor skills.

Mathematical and numeracy skills are an essential part of learning as they provide all pupils with ways to explore, investigate and understand the world around them. Maths supports the development of problem solving and decision-making skills which are integrated through the whole curriculum. Mathematics includes counting, sorting, matching, seeking patterns, making connections, recognising relationships and working with numbers, shapes, space and measures. Maths and numeracy form an integral part of our everyday curriculum at Knowsley Central School.  We always aim to provide opportunities that allow our pupils to practice and embed their skills in a variety of practical and functional context and situations .At Knowsley Central School, early mathematics is developed through stories, songs, games, sensory and imaginative play so that children enjoy using and experimenting with numbers and other mathematical concepts.    Some children struggle with certain aspects of mathematical language and concepts, we use a universal approach when teaching specific maths related language through visual supports and modified verbal methods when asking questions, giving directions, presenting concepts, and offering explanations.  We also use a multi-sensory approach to support and engage all types of learners. At the earliest level there is an emphasis on the experience and emerging awareness of touch, communication, vision, movement and sensory exploration.  As skills develop there is a focus on developing pupil’s skills in the number system, calculations, measures, shape and space whilst seeking to use and apply them in a wide range of contexts. Children further develop their skills in number, shape, space, measures and handling data with added emphasis on the number system, place value, addition and subtraction (both written and mental methods), multiplication and division (including times tables and written methods), fractions, algebra and using and applying skills. Children are encouraged to be independent in solving problems and are also encouraged to use their mathematical knowledge in real life situations to help improve their independent and life skills.