Beaconside Primary & Nursery School

Numeracy Information Morning 

To provide you with a taster of how we teach Numeracy in school and to help you support your child’s

Numeracy skills to develop.

1 + 2 + 3 = 6

Our aims for Numeracy

• We strive in school towards achievement through experience, enjoyment, understanding and confidence. All gained through teaching and learning.

• If Numeracy is fun and rewarding, the children have a much more positive attitude and approach towards their learning.

Learning Styles

Auditory: Songs, Chants, Rhymes or counting patterns to help refine and consolidate numberknowledge (1,2,3,4,5/10 Fat Sausages, counting back in 2’s, whisper/shout in a

circle2’s, 5’s 10’s multiples, fizz / buzz, duel).

Visual:Use of number fans/carpet tiles/number lines and ICT activities to aid andsupport learning.

Kinaesthetic: Hands on approach to learning - using resources such as cars/teddy bears/sweets/ whiteboards to aid and support calculations such as addition and subtraction. ‘Show me number game’

A combination of these three approaches, are used in Numeracy sessions each and every day. This gives the children both variety and opportunity to extend their knowledge and understanding, in areas such as pattern/shape/addition and subtraction/number ordering/measures.

A Numeracy Lesson

Mental and Oral starters:

• Used to recap skills learnt in previous sessions and develop new skills. This will be around 5/10 minutes of the session at the beginning. This may include activities such as:: Show me game: counting in 10’s: what can you tell me about etc.: number fans to make decimals: doubling and halving machines: multiplication and division

Used to get the children in the right frame of mind for Numeracy.

A Numeracy Lesson

Session Introduction: • Recap previous learning or introduce a

new aspect of Numeracy.

• During the introduction we will have a whole class based activity that promotes the area of learning in the main session. This may include a game on the Whiteboard/in a circle that they can all join in with. Often the children are asked to become involved through discussion, using a whiteboard, pairing and sharing ideas.

A Numeracy Lesson

Main Activities: • Children go and complete activities in

groups/pairs/individually, based on the activities offered.

• Adults usually work with children to support their learning and move the children forwards, developing their thinking skills.

• Independent activities where children take their own learning forwards. From Nursery to Year Six we promote active learning with independence.

A Numeracy Lesson

Plenary: • Children come back as a class, sharing

their learning, explaining their activities and presenting work achieved.

• At the end of the lesson learning is assessed and reflected upon ready for the next lesson.

What did you do today?’ – ‘Nothing!’

• If we did nothing, I would not look so tired!!• Children are learning constantly… 3 types of learning.• Thinking skills - Use of Open-ended questions, Problem

solving – Rather than closed questions:

How could we sort these shapes? More people like crisps than chocolate? – How could we find out if this is

true, recording our information? What different coins could we use if I wanted to spend 47p in a sweet

shop? Calculating the number of coaches and the cost for all the children, for a

school trip. Working out the area of the school hall in order to help the office staff

place an order for paint. Calculating the price of a holiday which is 50% reduced.

• All these approaches help children to gain a clearer understanding of Numeracy.

What can you do at home?

• Creativity is the key, not a financial burden.• Don’t have to buy expensive Numeracy based

games.• Making number fans or tiles with paper and felt

pens, gives you and your children quality social learning time as well as the ability to use their imaginative/creative skills, making games out of the simplest of resources.

Numeracy at home…Key Stage 1• Seasonal number tiles - leaf numbers, bonfire pictures using a

certain number of twigs, colour pattern necklaces using pasta.• Shape hunts in kitchen cupboards. 3D shapes, 2D shapes windows

etc.• Reading, adding, ordering numbers on car licence plates.• Finding different ways to make 10p/20p with loose change. Make

coins.• Reading television guides to understand digital and analogue clocks.• Catalogues (Argos etc) add up different prices, pages numbers, add

up, order, take away catalogue item ordering numbers, • Recognising prices when shopping and thinking what coins would be

needed to buy that item.• 3 birds in the garden and one flew away. Subtract 1 from 3. 3 take

away 1. Language support is essential, e.g. use subtract/take away/ difference/less. Give your children different experiences of the same problem. The more they experience the language, the greater their knowledge and understanding will be.

• Remote controls and microwave panels have numbers on them – ask the children to select channel 42, 6 etc…

Numeracy at Home…Key Stage 2• Problem solving using accurate measures e.g. ‘On a twenty-

four mile journey, we have driven 17 miles, how far do we have left to go?

• Understanding Measures such as 1000ml in a litre, 10mm in 1cm, 100cm in a metre, 1000m in a kilometre. And putting these into similar problem solving questions. We Have travelled 4 ½ Km how many metres is this?

• Let your children handle coins and figure out how much buying 2/3 things at the shop would cost, and what coins they would need to pay for them.

• Look at weight of tins at home, adding together two tins of food in grams… how many more grams to make a kilogram?

• Ask them to keep a running total of your weekly shop!• We’re travelling at 40mph – how long will it take us to

travel 120miles?