It is a whole network of concepts and relationships which provide a way of viewing and making sense of the world, transferring essential key mathematical skills into other curricular areas but also into everyday life. Maths is used to analyse and communicate information and ideas and to tackle a range of practical tasks and real-life problems. Maths is not confined to just acquiring mathematical skills but about fostering enquiring minds, inciting enthusiasm and valuing curiosity.

Why do we provide a 'Skills for Life' curriculum for our learners?

Our students acquire skills at a slower rate than their neurotypical peers. Therefore, their preparation for adulthood and life-skills learning, is lifelong, and a school long process.

Contextual learning and real-life rehearsal of skills provides a less-abstract and more concrete way of learning. This enables generalising and maintaining skills.

While the emphasis in this wider curriculum is for skills development using curriculum vehicles, within the life skills curriculum there are opportunities to scaffold specific life skills to rehearse and repetition to achieve mastery. These include life skills such as cooking, health and safety, shopping, community access and vocational skills. Using these to also engage pupils’ motivation (to shop for a desired item, to take part in a gardening activity that also meets sensory needs and regulation) will best ensure that these core life skills concepts become embedded.

Mathematical knowledge should be embedded and reinforced in all aspects of life skills learning, for example, sorting, categorising, counting, weighting and measuring items and objects to support independent learning.  However, these skills may need to be taught discretely as stand-alone concepts in order to reinforce understanding alongside contextual application.

Key mathematical language:- (to be rehearsed and reinforced in all contexts and activities as part of life skills work)

Maths knowledge should be reinforced throughout the curriculum. Therefore, it is vital that the vocabulary and the references are consistent throughout all context and learning opportunities.

Throughout the maths skills guidance, it details that skills may be taught as discrete skills, but every opportunity should be taken to apply these to real life learning and daily rehearsal within routines and learning delivery, both on and off site. 

Number acquisition (Gelman and Gallistel) – mathematical concepts are largely linear and hierarchical — i.e. must be acquired in order.

The one-one principle — one, and only one, unique number tag must be assigned to each item counted

The stable order principle — count words must be produced in the same order for each count

The cardinality principle — the final word of a count denotes the total number of items counted.

Maths for Pathway 3 & Pathway 4 students

Students in Pathway 3 and Pathway 4 have discrete maths lessons as part of their curriculum.  Typically, students in these pathways are working at above W Level 9 (cognitively 36 months plus) and are able to access maths learning from the National Curriculum.  We use White Rose Maths as a resource to ensure understanding of key concepts and some students in Pathway 4 will gain Functional Skill or GCSE accreditation in Maths by the end of Year 11.