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Family Numeracy Course

In the summer of 2002, our school had funding from Hampshire County Council's Adult & Community Learning Unit to run a Family Numeracy Course.

The course was supported by Brockenhurst College and involved setting up a maths programme for parents to help them develope their own skills in supporting their children's learning.We wanted the maths programme to involve parents whose children attend Pennington Infant and Junior Schools.

The course was led by Mrs. Paula Chalk from the college and involved the maths co-ordinators from both the Infant and Junior School.
Six parents attended day- time sessions and, although there was some initial apprehension about "doing maths", the parents enjoyed learning in such a practical way and increased their own confidence in maths at the same time.

Initially all the parents were invited to sit in on maths lessons in Year Two and Year Three/Four. They worked with their own children on problems set by the teachers and saw how the National Numeracy Strategy is taught in practice.
There was some time to ask questions and discuss what they had seen after the lesson. However, time was pressing, and the next time we run this course we will plan in more discussion time.

The course aimed to make learning as practical as possible and covered many mathematical areas such as Shape, Space and Measure, Number and Calculation. The practical activities included making boxes from nets, working to recipes and creating maths resources that directly benefited the schools.
In addition, the parents made a very positive and welcome contribution to our Queen's Jubilee Celebration Picnic by making the boxes for prizes and cooking cakes and biscuits.

In addition to improving their maths skills, all of the adults were able to work with their own children as part of the course. For these sessions parents came into school and worked with their children, under the guidance of the tutors, to create a maths trail in the school grounds.
This involved lots of mathematical discussion and led to the staff and the children looking at their environment in much closer detail than before!
The trail was devised and set at two levels - Lower and Upper Junior -and word processed in the computer suite. Resources were made and the course was then tested by the group. Practical suggestions for the wording of the questions, font size and colour of resources were all made and adjustments undertaken.

After the trail was complete, Year Two teachers from the Infant school came up to the Junior site and completed the maths trail with Year Three/Four pupils.
The parents were so pleased and so enthusiastic that they are now planning to write a trail specifically using the Infants site!

The scheme was a success and although the group was small, the benefits were clear. All parents felt that they had increased their confidence in their own numeracy skills and felt more positive about supporting their child's developing numeracy skills and use of mathematical language. All of the parents reported that they had also increased the time they spent with their children in doing mathematical based activities at home. They were also more aware of how maths was taught in the school and had had the opportunity to see some of the strategies for calculation that their children were using.

There were benefits for the children too!
They showed an increased interest in games, books and role-play using numbers and improved their use of mathematical vocabulary especially in comparison and ordering.
They were also increasing their understanding of instructions and questions relating to calculating, making decisions and estimating.

To celebrate these successes, an award ceremony was held in the school grounds when our Head Teacher, Mrs. Flaxman, presented the parents and their children with certificates.

 

These are the final trails produced by the group for lower and upper school.

 

PENNINGTON SCHOOL MATHS TRAIL

LOWER SCHOOL

Name……………………………Class…………………

Start outside reception

1. On the tree outside the reception, how many main branches below the string are there?

2. Count how many windows are on one section of the hall?

3. What shape are the windows?

4. Find the 3rd tree from the gate and measure around the trunk.

5. Find the main gate.
Estimate, how many squares inside the sticky tape

Estimate …………………

Now count them.

Count ……………………

6. Look at the colours of the cars in the car park and fill in the chart.

7. Which is the most popular colour of car?

8. If each car has 4 tyres, how many tyres would 3 cars have?

9. Go to the social area gate.Look up.
What shape is the metal chimney?

10. Go through the gates to the social area.
Look at the mural.
How many spots on the Giraffe on the mural?

11. How many Butterflies?

12. How many Dragonflies?

13. How many eggs in the nest?

14. How many eggs would there be in 2 nests?

15. Count the number of planks of wood on one picnic table.

16. How many right angles can you find on the table (use Robbie right angle)?

17. Find the marked paving slabs.
Draw a line to make two equal parts on one slab.

Find another slab.
Draw lines to make four equal parts.

18. Go to the upper school playground.
Measure the long side of the playground with a trundle wheel.

Now measure the short side.

19. Draw and name the different shapes painted on the playground.

20. On the notice board outside the lower school entrance, count how many red, blue and yellow magnets there are

RED
YELLOW
BLUE

21. What shape are the posts in the adventure playground?

22. Count the posts in the adventure playground.

23. Go across the field to the big oak trees.
Measure the distance between the two marked oak trees with a tape measure.

24. Estimate which is the fattest tree.

25. Go to the lower school playground and find the snake.
Write down an odd number and an even number on the snake.

26. Use chalk to fill in the missing numbers on the hopscotch game.

 

PENNINGTON SCHOOL MATHS TRAIL

UPPER SCHOOL

Name………………………………………………………Class…………………

Start outside reception.

1. How many main branches can you count below the tape on the tree outside reception?

2. Count how many windows are in one section outside hall.

3. How many are there in 3 sections?

4. How many shapes of window are there?

5. Name them.

6. Measure the diameter of the third tree from the main gate.

7. How many small squares are inside the sticky tape section? Estimate and then check your answer.

8. Complete tally chart for cars in the car park.

9. Which is the most popular colour car in the car park?

10. If there are 8 cars in the car park, how many tyres are there?

11. On the gates to the kitchen, count the round bars in one section.

12. There are 6 sections, how many round bars in total?

13. What shapes are on these gates? Measure to check if there are any squares.

14. What shape is the chimney?

15. How many spots are there on the giraffe?

16. How many would there be if there were 4 giraffes?

17. Name the symmetrical shapes in the social area.

18. If there are 6 children sat at a picnic table, how many children can sit down in total?

19. Measure the area and perimeter of one picnic table.

20. How many right angles are there on one picnic table.

21. Measure the heights of 3 poles. What is the difference between the shortest and the tallest?

22. Show how to quarter a slab in 2 different ways.

23. Estimate the length and width of the playground. Measure and check.

24. Name different shapes on the playground.

25. How many different shapes are on the Inspection Cover.

26. How many cylinder shapes are there on the adventure playtrail?

27. Estimate distances between 2 oaks. Measure and check.

28. Estimate girth of largest oak tree. Measure and check.

29. If you added all the numbers on the snake together, how many would you have?

30. Halve the highest even number on the snake.

31. Fill in the gaps on the mutiplication square.

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