Reading time: 2 minutes
Numeracy – it’s often not the easiest of subjects to teach, even when you have all the passion in the world.
Engaging children in numbers can often feel one of the toughest of all teaching nuts to crack. If this sounds familiar, games could well present the answer.
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Maths + Fun = An impossible equation? Not necessarily.
Whether you’re a teacher or parent, attempting to engage an unwilling child in maths can sometimes be difficult.
Here are some simple and effective ways to make mathematics fun (for motivated kids and learning that sticks).
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How does one go about raising the numeracy skills in youth who, for a great majority, want little to nothing to do with math exercises?
The solution may be found through an integration of sports and numeracy skills.
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Since the 14-19 reform act, there has been a great deal of change in the curriculum in the UK. Now, our education system provides our youth with training in skills that are going to be useful in life and help them build up knowledge to help them succeed.
It was designed to help encourage more and more young people to continue into higher education. However, not every young individual wants to go to university, so the 14-19 reforms provide alternative further education paths for these individuals.
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Reading time: 3 minutes
Not having numeracy skills can have a long lasting and damaging effect on life as an adult. Lack of numeracy can affect behaviour, employment prospects, lifeskills and the overall attitude to the future.
To minimise the risk of this happening after a pupil leaves school, all issues with regards to numeracy must be addressed as early as possible to help a low numeracy child become numerate.
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Students who struggle with literacy or numeracy barriers can often have low self-esteem as they become more and more aware of their differences to their classmates who do not have the same struggles. This lack of self-esteem then becomes a barrier to them overcoming their difficulties, as they lose the will to try new tasks or commit themselves to activities that challenge them.
Raising the self-esteem of someone who has a genuine barrier is tricky, as their doubts have a basis in truth. You need to avoid false praise or platitudes and instead target things they really are good at to begin with. Build up their basic level of confidence and some of this will transfer onto their academic work.
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Engaging teenagers in Maths and English can often feel like an uphill struggle – particularly if their levels of numeracy and literacy are low. It’s even more of a challenge to emphasise and convince them then that these are probably the two most important subjects to focus on when planning their career path.
Where being a celebrity is now a very popular answer to ‘what career do you think you want’ and then specific replies being that being either a footballer, model or reality TV star is at the top of the list, there’s a falling perception in some teenagers that Maths and English are of any value.
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Reading time: 3 minutes
Raising engagement in maths – and in turn attainment – is a major focus of every school curriculum policy. Looking at ways to motivate and enthuse pupils in a subject where some have always struggled isn’t easy.
However, there are ways to stop the jumble of figures being seemingly meaningless both on the page and in real life and to illustrate ways to put together the parts of the jigsaw which makes up the whole subject.
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The traditionally taught methods of maths are being challenged by those who feel that the future of the subject should be less about the mechanics of maths and more about the concept of the subject and the practical uses. There are calls for maths to become more about everyday use than currently taught and less and less about the theory behind how the maths works.
In essence, the thoughts are that learning about what algebra is should be replaced completely in the future with how it’s used in everyday scenarios.
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Teachers of STEM subjects are looking to find ways to make them more appealing following a study which showed that those who are studying maths and science-based subjects find them ‘dull’.
Over 1500 students were interviewed in the 14-18 year old age group and 44% said that they felt that STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) were ‘uninteresting’.
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Last week saw the news that Ofqual had “launched a conversation with the public on how standards should be set for new GCSEs.” The new GCSE shake-up will include the replacement of A-C grades with a 1-9 numbered scale, with 1 for the lowest performers and 9 for the top performers; thought to be “awarded to only half the pupils now achieving an A*” (BBC, 2014).
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I don’t think anybody would be surprised by the notion that maths is often considered unpopular. Indeed one of the biggest barriers to engagement with maths seems to be the reputation it has in society.
In his book, Rethinking School Mathematics, Andrew Noyes identifies the social barriers pupils experience in regards to maths, and the fact that textbooks’ attempts to connect maths problems to real life situations often fail as “there is a real difference between what many teachers and textbooks perceive to be real-life mathematics and what people experience in their lives”.
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Reading time: 3 minutes
Making the move from primary school to secondary is a daunting experience for many children and, as a result, it is a transition that needs to be as smooth as possible.
The percentage of pupils that received a Level 4 in their KS2 Sats results in reading, spelling and mathematics has risen slightly compared to the 2012 results. However, it is still evident that a ‘significant percentage of pupils are leaving primary school without a sufficient grasp of reading, writing and maths’, which adds more stress and strain for all the staff involved (The Guardian, September 2013).
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