White Rose Maths is an organisation that’s been helping schools in the UK to improve maths education and instil a love of learning in children for several years. They provide maths resources and Schemes of Learning to help children progress through the National Curriculum in small steps and develop confidence and competence in mathematics.

The White Rose Maths approach focuses on maths mastery — children are taught to fully grasp topics, not just scrape the surface, so by the time they move on to more advanced lessons they have a deep understanding of foundational concepts. As a result, children benefit from improved learning retention and they develop mathematical understanding, reasoning and problem-solving abilities that will stay with them for life.

And what’s more, White Rose Maths also recognises the importance of enjoyment on children’s journey to maths mastery. The White Rose Maths curriculum encourages teachers to make lessons fun and engaging to capture children’s attention and make lessons memorable.

It’s no wonder that White Rose Maths has gone down a treat with teachers, parents and children alike — what’s not to like about fun maths lessons that help all children excel in this subject?

But if you’re hoping to use the White Rose Maths approach to help children become enthusiastic masters of maths, you’ll need to choose the right resources to support your lessons. So what should you look for in White Rose Maths resources and what makes these resources different from your standard, run-of-the-mill learning materials?

What Are White Rose Maths Resources?

When we refer to White Rose Maths resources, we don’t mean those produced exclusively by White Rose Maths themselves. Because the maths mastery approach and the White Rose Maths Schemes of Learning are accepted and used by millions of parents and teachers around the UK, there are thousands of resources designed to support lessons that follow these schemes.

Choosing the right resources will help children consolidate their knowledge with fluency tasks and challenge them with reasoning and problem-solving activities. All while sticking to the lessons outlined in the Schemes of Learning.

What to Look for in White Rose Maths Resources

Choosing the right resources can be the difference between children throwing themselves into lessons with an eagerness to learn and pupils struggling to engage in maths lessons. You want to make sure children have access to effective learning resources that spark excitement about maths and help them meet the learning objectives outlined in the White Rose Maths curriculum (which are aligned with the National Curriculum).

Here’s what you should look for when choosing White Rose Maths resources to complement your lesson plans and help children engage and succeed in maths lessons.

Clear Learning Objectives

White Rose Maths has produced Schemes of Learning for each year group to help children progress through the National Curriculum logically and in a way that supports teaching for mastery. There are reasons why some lessons come before others — there are some learning objectives that children won’t be able to meet until they’ve got a firm understanding of the concepts taught in other lessons. For example, children need to learn numbers and place value up to and including 10 before working with numbers over 10.
So when selecting White Rose Maths resources, make sure the resources are designed to help children meet a specific learning objective. This way, you’ll know the resources are perfectly suited for your lesson plan and also for the children’s abilities.

Fun and Engaging Elements

We all know that children have a tendency to get bored quickly, especially when it comes to educational activities. So resources need to be fun and engaging! They should capture and keep children’s attention (preferably for longer than five minutes) and get them excited to learn. When you find a resource that children look forward to using, that’s when you’re on to a winner.

So when choosing White Rose Maths resources, look for visual imagery, creative scenarios, and other fun and engaging elements.

A Variety of Challenges and Activities

By giving children a variety of resources, you can keep maths lessons fresh and engaging, help pupils develop their maths skills and encourage deep learning with different types of problems applied to different contexts.

Plus, not all children have the same learning style. Some learners might respond better to visual resources, while others may learn better while writing or listening to resources that use sound. Using a variety of challenges and activities can help you engage all types of learners in lessons.

Differentiated Resources

Teaching for mastery doesn’t mean you can’t use differentiated resources. In fact, the opposite is true. Differentiation can help children work towards mastery, as long as resources are differentiated within numbers and learning objectives. For example, rather than high attaining learners progressing on to different topics and tackling problems involving different numbers before their classmates, they can work on resources that are more complex and challenging within the same learning objective.

This encourages deep learning and means your whole class will progress at a similar pace. No one falls behind or suffers a confidence knock after seeing classmates progress more rapidly.

Consider Both Consolidation and Development

White Rose Maths focuses on children’s journey to maths mastery and that’s a journey that involves both consolidation of prior knowledge and development of new problem-solving and reasoning skills. So you’ll need White Rose Maths resources that let children improve their mathematical fluency as well as resources that push them to develop their understanding and skills.

At Master the Curriculum, we offer thousands of primary maths resources that are aligned with the White Rose Maths framework, including maths worksheets, teaching slides, interactive maths videos and reasoning booklets. All of our resources have a clear learning objective and will engage and excite children with fun visuals and creative contexts that get them thinking. Start accessing our resources for White Rose Maths learning by signing up for a free or premium account.