As you may already be aware the Falkirk Learning to Achieve festival is happening between the 3rd and 6th of June 2024 at various locations around Falkirk. I am delighted that some colleagues have chosen to present on effective practices in numeracy and mathematics. If you are interested in finding out more, the full programme of events can be found here: https://bit.ly/LTASIGNUP

National Numeracy Day – 22^nd May 2024

There is still time for ELC settings, primary schools and organisations that work with young children, to join sign up for National Numeracy Day. By signing up they can find free, fun and engaging resources, including videos and worksheets from their celebrity ambassadors and Delivery Partners. Together, help children bake, dance and rap their way to number confidence this May. There’s plenty for adults too, with resources covering numeracy for work, money management and supporting children. National Numeracy Day Live is taking place at 9:30am. National Numeracy ambassadors Bobby Seagull, Katya Jones and Jessica Gagen will be joined by CBeebies Numberblocks and The Royal Astronomical Society for 30 minutes of space-themed number fun, where children across the country can kickstart National Numeracy Day wherever they are. Don’t forgot to promote their Number Heroes Competition – open to children aged 3 to 13 across the UK, with six prize bundles worth over £1,000 each. Aimed at sparking imaginations and conversations by asking children to draw a picture of themselves in their dream job or hobby, explaining all the different ways they’d use numbers and maths: https://www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/number-heroes-competition.

Maths Week Scotland – Grants Fund

The Maths Week Scotland Grants Fund is now open for submissions. Maths Week Scotland will be offering grants of between £2-5k to support organisations, partnerships, and charities to develop in-person events or digital activities for Maths Week Scotland 2024. Ideally, they would like activities to take place during Maths Week Scotland 2024 (23^rd-29^th of September), however, this is not set in stone and as long as your activity will take place before 31^st of December 2024 they are happy to accept your submission.

The Maths Week Scotland theme for 2024 is ‘Maths Tales’, this looks at how maths is used to tell stories, the history of maths and prominent mathematicians, links between maths and literature and the stories woven into maths trails and escape rooms. They would encourage your grant submissions to tie in with this theme.  Application forms, guidance and further information can all be found on our website (https://www.mathsweek.scot/support/funding).

 The final deadline for submission is 17:00 on Monday 10^th of June 2024.

National Numeracy Day 2024 is on Wednesday 22 May.

Sign up and get access to the Toolkit with resources, activities and tips on how to make the most of your National Numeracy Day.

Or you can just dive into the resources on this page and improve your numeracy using the National Numeracy Challenge.

In preparation for Maths Week Scotland 2021, which begins next week (27th September – 3rd October), the Education Scotland Numeracy Team have pulled together a sway which contains lots of information and links to things that are going on across the week and beyond.

Go to this Sway

To tag the Education Scotland Numeracy team into the fabulous learning that is going on in Falkirk during this week, please use the following: @edscot_maths @MathsWeekScot #MathsWeekScot.

A reminder also that we are asking practitioners to use the hashtags: #Falkirknumeracyforall and #makeSUMthingofmathsinFalkirk

Please use these to celebrate your maths and numeracy which showcases numeracy across the curriculum and in everyday lives.

Times Tables Rock Stars is taking part in Maths Week Scotland and to celebrate are running a Rock Out competition exclusive to schools. The competition will run from Monday 20th September 2021 to Thursday 23rd September 2021!

More information can be found here

Find out more here:  https://www.mathsweek.scot/  and here:

FW__Maths_Week_Scotland_

In Falkirk we are encouraging arty maths for this 2020 Maths week Scotland.

I cannot wait to see the learning that is going on!

Please tweet any and all quality maths and numeracy activities to showcase the great experiences our young people are having in Falkirk using the following hashtags and tags:

#ArtyMathsFalkirk

#MathsWeekScot

@numbhubchampfalk

There are a lot of fantastic opportunities, resources and material over the course of the week that can all be found here on the Maths Week Scotland website.

Get our selection of resources here including our fantastic STEMpire challenges.

NRICH maths resources linked to Art

STEM learning Maths in Art resources

Artists for whom maths is their muse

Artists who are mathematicians, mathematicians who are artists; look them up:

Hamid Naderi Yeganeh

Hinke Osinga

Robert Longhurst

Simon Beck

STEMpire challenges: 

Early Level

First Level

Second Level

S1 

S2

I had a query from a school last week looking for numeracy diagnostic assessments, intervention programmes, CLPL and any further numeracy support to assist during this term of recovery and beyond.

So I’ve put a few bits and pieces together that I consider to be good practice and good resources.

• Our own Falkirk Council Pressure points can be used to assess children and take the form of flash cards.  The numeracy strategy also gives some ideas for numeracy support.  All of this can be accessed here through glow.
• Education Scotland Numeracy Professional Learning resources can be found here.
• This link takes you to videos for CLPL that the RIC Numeracy lead and PTs created.
• The Maths Factor is offering a free times table check just now which is fun and interactive as well as good.
• If practitioners create an account for knowledgehook.com  (it’s free) there is a section called the toolkit which has a videos and archives part to it.  Within this is a a lot of videos that can be used by practitioners for CLPL on mathematics; you just have to scroll through to find them.
• I’d also suggest looking at youcubed for resources and CLPL.  A lot of this is free also.  Good resources here to challenge students in the “week of inspirational maths” stuff.
• This site (national centre for excellence in teaching mathematics) is also a great source of materials and CLPL.
• I’d also recommend whiterosemaths.com.  Again they have resources and CLPL and some of this if free.
• https://www.mathlearningcenter.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/LTM_Rekenrek.pdf This book is a resource for learning and teaching for young children using a rekenrek and has a series of lessons to follow.  Using this can quickly show what early level children (and indeed first level children) have difficulty with in early number.
• https://www.mathlearningcenter.org/resources/apps/number-rack Using this site gives you the rekenrek digitally (so could use on whiteboard) and if you scroll down on the page you’ll see the books that are free to download that go with it (includes an activity book for the students).
• I see maths has some free resources that helps make learning visible.
• Thinking about blended learning as part of recovery planning and contingency plans then take a look at this webinar from Graham Fletcher.  In it he discusses how he taught maths and engaged with his students during lockdown. Great CLPL.
• Graham Fletcher also has his own web page and is worth a look for other learning and teaching ideas.