Adding support to maths

Abstract

The majority of teaching assistants support numeracy lessons daily, making use of quality strategies to promote numeracy development, vital to children’s progress. As any teaching assistant knows, however, there are many factors that have to be taken into account to create a quality learning activity – grouping, how the activity relates to the learning styles of the children, the resources, level of engagement, how well they know the children and the teaching assistant’s personal confidence in maths – to name but a few. The ability to focus on the development of mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding, along with individual progress, can be a challenge, but is certainly not impossible. One of the first priorities is to take notice of children’s individual targets and personal interests and to get an idea of how much they enjoy maths. This can be done through discussions with the class teacher and becoming involved in the work that is going on behind the scenes in terms of the planning and assessment. The greater involvement you can have, the more you will understand the teacher’s thinking behind each activity and the better you will be able to support the children. To provide the teacher with further accurate feedback, which will assist in informing future planning, I would recommend keeping a record of the children’s participation and progress during activities. This will also assist you in recognising patterns in the types of activities that really engage the children and allow them to achieve the learning outcomes successfully and with apparent ease and enjoyment. The Primary Framework for Mathematics is also a great starting point to find out what is expected of the children during each year group and the progression expected. By looking at the framework you will also gain a better idea of the rationale behind the teacher’s planning and how they have interpreted the curriculum into a structure that is meaningful and purposeful to the children. Before supporting learning activities within a topic, it is advisable to carry out some research on the common misconceptions associated with that area. These misconceptions are often very simple to rectify, however, they often go unnoticed by teaching assistants because they are not sure what they are looking for and how they should respond. An example of a common misconception children have is writing the number ‘three thousand and two’ as 3,0002 instead of 3,002. Other misconceptions include counting each object more than once when learning one-to-one correspondence (one number relates to one object), or starting to measure a line from the end of the ruler and not the ‘0’ mark. Mathematical understanding and misconceptions may be due to the age and developmental stage of the children. Some further reading into Jean Piaget’s stages and conservation tasks can be incredibly useful in helping teaching assistants to understand why it is important that when children are adding two sets of counters these remain in the position that the child counted them. Once moved, the child may need to count them again as the movement has caused them to think that the quantity has changed. The same principle applies when moving liquid from one size of container to another, and to anything else that can change in appearance, such as modelling dough. The most important aspect of supporting numeracy is to enjoy it – if you can demonstrate a genuine enthusiasm for the topic you are delivering, this will have a hugely positive impact on the children. Of course, as we all know, when children really enjoy what they are learning and feel confident enough to take risks without worrying about getting it ‘wrong’, that is when the real learning takes place. PTU top tips