‘Parental involvement has a large and positive impact on children’s learning’
Review of Best Practice in Parental Engagement (Department for Education, 2010)
Top tips for parents and carers:
- Be positive about maths. Don’t say things like “I can’t do maths” or “I hated maths at school”; your child might start to think like that themselves.
- Point out the maths in everyday life.Include your child in activities involving maths such as using money, cooking and travelling.
- Praise your child for effort rather than talent – this shows them that by working hard they can always improve.
Numeracy is all around us and although we teach it within the classroom there is lots of opportunities to learn Numeracy skills. Here is some ideas parents and carers could help support their child’s Numeracy development.
Cooking or baking: How will we measure how much? Can you read the numbers? Can you help me count the spoons? How many cupcake cases will we need? How long will it take to cook? What time will it be ready? What it we double or halve the recipe? How many will we make? How many cakes will we get each in our family? How many chocolate buttons will we need if we put three on each cake?
Shopping: How many will we need? How much? Will we have enough from this amount? What shape is this? Which is more or less? Which is bigger? How do we work out 20% off? What will it cost if we buy ten? Which is better value?
Watching or playing sports – what’s the score now? What if they get two more goals? How much is the black worth? What is treble twenty? How much better have they done than last week? What do these statistics mean? How long is the game? What time will it be at half-time?
Recycling – how will we sort these? How many? What shape is this? Which is the longest? Can you find me a cylinder?
Walking or driving to school – How long does it take? How many steps? How many number fours can you spot on the way? What number patterns can we spot? Are these numbers odd or even? What shapes can you spot? What directions are we taking? What would be the time difference if we walked or cycled?
