Maths at Bedwell
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Each half-term, every class in the school focuses on one key area of maths, based on
strengths and weaknesses identified by all of our teachers at the start of the year. Your
child’s targets are explained over the page, along with some ideas for how you can
support your child with them at home. The targets are split into 3 sections - the
‘Should’ target is age-related, based on national standards for maths, and is the point
most children should reach. For some children maths can be difficult and therefore they
are targeted to get the ‘Must’. For others who really excel at maths there is the ‘Could’
target, which challenges them to work at a higher level.
Each class also selects a key set of number facts - their ’Learn-Its’ - which they
practice every day. These are explained below, and again it would be a huge help if you
could spend a few minutes every day helping your child to learn these.
Learn-Its: Adding 2 or 3
xx
This half-term, we are learning what happens when we add 2 or 3,
focussing on these four key number facts:
5
4 + 3 = 7, 5 + 3 = 8, 6 + 3 = 9, 9 + 2 = 11
+3
=8
Here a few things you could try together at home:
 Write-out number facts with finger paints, chalk or water-on-tarmac, or make them
from playdoh or fridge magnets.
 Try making-up rhymes to help remember number facts (“5 and 3 equals 8, use knives
and forks - don’t lick the plate!” etc)
 Chant, sing, whisper... Say number facts out loud together whenever you have the
chance - silly voices and silly ways to say them really stick in the memory.
 Look for 7, 8, 9 and 11 in the world around you, and check the ‘2 + ‘ or ‘3 + ‘ number
fact when you spot them.
 We learn number facts in ‘fact families’, so when you’ve got good at the addition
facts, practice the related subtractions (8 - 5 = 3, 11 - 2 = 9 etc) too.
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Maths Targets
Introduction to concept of targets;
Must
Should
Could
I can say which
numbers are odd and
even up to 10
I can say which
numbers are odd and
even up to 100
I know if a
large number is
odd or even
Note on age related expectations
How you can help:
Count everything! Really, everything - clothes, toys, food, people,
cars, anything - very little of the maths we do means anything to our
children unless they can count towards 100 and get a sense of
what that number ‘looks like’ as a group of objects (not just a
number), so counting is by far the most valuable thing you
can do to help your child’s maths develop.
Move onto counting in 2s, starting with even numbers (2, 4, 6, 8, 10)
and seeing how high you can get together. Then try counting in 2s
starting with odd numbers (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 etc). What do we
notice about the numbers in each sequence - how do they end?
Practice sharing toys, sweets or biscuits into two groups - are
there any left over? If there are, agree that the number we started
with was odd, if there aren’t, the number was even.
Count petals on a flower - are there an odd or even number? Do
all flowers on a particular plant have an even / odd number of petals?
Find (and count) groups of objects in the world
around us - eg. 8 socks on the line or 17 cars in the car
park - is the amount odd or even?
Look at door numbers as you walk down the street - is
there any pattern in where we find odd or even numbers (eg.
odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other).
Look for numbers on number plates - what’s the biggest odd /
even number we can find today?