Bassetts Farm Primary School

What are KIRFS?

To develop your child’s fluency and mental maths skills, we are introducing KIRFs throughout the school. KIRFS are a fantastic way of helping your child to learn by heart, key facts and information which they need to have instant recall of.  KIRFs are designed to support the development of mental maths skills that underpin much of the maths work in our school. Practising KIRFs regularly helps children with all areas of maths – whether they are adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing. Instant recall of facts helps enormously with mental agility in maths lessons. When children move onto written calculations, knowing these key facts is extremely beneficial. The best way to learn KIRFs is through short, frequent practice. Just a few minutes each day can make a big difference to your child’s confidence and fluency in maths.

How can we access and practice KIRFs at home?

Each half term, children will focus on a Key Instant Recall Fact (KIRF) to practice and learn at home for the half term as a part of their home learning. These will be accessible on the school website KIRFs information pages include practical ideas to assist your child in grasping the key facts and contain helpful suggestions of ways in which you could make this learning interesting and relevant. Learning KIRFs shouldn’t be time-consuming. In fact, KIRFs can be practiced anywhere: in the car, walking to school, at the dinner table. The most important thing is regular practice. Little and often will support your child in retaining these facts for the long term!             

How are KIRFs developed in school? 

Throughout each half term, the KIRFs will also be practiced and assessed in school. These will be in short bursts during different times in the school week. Over their time at primary school, we believe that - if the KIRFs are developed fully - children will be more confident with number work, understand its relevance, and be able to access the curriculum much more easily. They will be able to apply what they have learnt to a wide range of problems that confront us regularly.

KIRFS OVERVIEW

This is an overview of the KIRFs being implemented across the school:

Focus sheets for this half term

Please by click on the relevant year group to access this half term's KIRFs focus home learning. These give information about the area of focus and suggestions such as games and websites on ways to support and practice at home. Please remember little and often is the best way.