Numeracy Key Stage One Test http www telegraph

Numeracy

Key Stage One Test http: //www. telegraph. co. uk/news/2016/05/15/canyou-solve-the-simple-maths-question-confusingadults/

Issues concerning Numeracy?

Research Findings • Pupils with low numeracy skills but with average literacy skills were twice as likely to be excluded from school (Df. E, 2009) • Nearly four out of ten economically inactive adults having very poor numeracy skills (adult national qualification Entry Level 2 or below) (DCFS, 2008)

Making a change • Change the way we think about mathematics and numeracy • Apply mathematics/numeracy across different subjects • Contextualise mathematics/numeracy so it is important and relevant (Numeracy Counts Report, 2011)

Attitude • “ We have a numeracy problem in this country - we are a nation quite happy to admit to being bad at maths; we see people almost wearing it as a badge of honour in a way they would never admit to saying they couldn’t read or write” Mary Marsh CBE, 2012

What do you have to teach?

Which Numeracy Skills Need to be Embedded? • • Numbers Operations & calculations Shape, space & measures Data handling

• • Identifying structures & relevant data Being systematic Searching for patterns Thinking logically Predicting & checking Breaking down problems into smaller parts Interpreting solutions in context of problem Estimating to check likelihood of answers

Sequencing • In order to help students think systematically, logically and to break down problems into smaller parts it helps to see things sequentially. Six Degrees of Separation (or The Kevin Bacon Game as it’s sometimes known), is useful way to get pupils to reflect on the explanations we’ve offered. If you’ve never encountered this before, it’s based on theory that every human being in the world is connected to every other human being through a chain of no more than six people. The idea is that they need to logically sequence their understanding from one concept to another. We could provide pupils with a prompt connected to the topic we’re studying, give them an end point they have to connect to and get them to sequence what they know: • Select a topic or theme. • Write 1– 6 along a timeline. • Put your topic at number 6. • Get from the stimulus to your topic in no more or less than six steps.

Questioning How could you sort these……. ? How many ways can you find to ……. ? What happens when we ……… ? How many different ……. can be found? What is the same/different? Can you group these ……. in some way? Is there a pattern? How can this pattern help you find an answer? What do think comes next? Why? Is there a way to record what you’ve found that might help us see more patterns? • What would happen if…. ? • • •

Cognitive Skills • specialising – trying special cases, looking at examples • generalising – looking for patterns and relationships • conjecturing – predicting relationships and results • convincing – finding and communicating reasons why something is true.

Organising • Graphs – bar, pie, line • Charts – Venn, flow