Numeracy Coordinator: Mrs A Hamill

At Parkhall Integrated College we ensure that our students are able to develop their understanding of cross-curricular mathematics. Numeracy is the foundation of mathematics. Our vision is that all students need to learn, develop and be confident with numeracy skills, and that this will serve them throughout their schooling, day-to-day life and future aspirations. We run a number of different numeracy programmes which include:

Sparx Maths: All students have access to Sparx Maths. All students complete their mathematics homework on Sparx Maths, which is set weekly.

Maths buddies: Sixth-form numeracy mentors complete a numeracy booklet with selected students focusing on the core skills of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.

Junior Maths Challenge: Students are selected years 8 and 9 to complete in the Junior Maths Challenge. This is a 60-minute challenge which encourages mathematical reasoning, precision of thought, and fluency in using basic mathematical techniques to solve interesting problems.

Axiom maths: Parkhall Integrated College enjoyed a partnership with Axiom maths which supports the approach is maths circles. These are small groups of students who meet weekly to tackle a curriculum of challenging maths problems.

Maths in registration time: key stage 3 students follow a programme of study focusing on developing the cores skills of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.

The Numeracy Island Hop: Year 8 students will complete numeracy related tasks in all of their subjects during the year.

What can you do to support Numeracy at home?

At Parkhall Integrated College, we work hard to support your child’s Numeracy development in all subjects and we would welcome any time you could devote to this at home.

It would be useful if you would also:

• Show them how we use Maths skills in our everyday lives and to involve your child in this. The family maths toolkit has some excellent ideas for this - you can view this here.
• Identifying problems and solving them can also help your child develop Maths skills; If you see him or her puzzling over something, talk about the problem and try to work out the solution together.
• Don't shy away from Maths if you didn’t like it at school. Try to find new ways to enjoy the subject with your child.
• Take your child shopping and talk about the quantities of anything you buy.
• Let your child handle money and work out how much things cost.
• When taking transport, work out the journey times and encourage them to plan journeys together.
• The National Numeracy Challenge is designed to give you an accurate picture of your everyday maths skills. You start by registering and completing a quick-check of your skills, which highlights the areas you need to improve. You are shown how to do any questions you got wrong, so you're learning straight away!
  The next step is to try again. By practising and improving you will see progress.
  Click on the link here to get started.

We have also produced a helpful numeracy guide for parents/guardians. This can be found here:

• Numeracy parent guide