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Cross Curricular

Numeracy Policy

Guidance on writing a whole school Numeracy Policy

It is intended that this document will provide information and guidelines for a uniform approach to numeracy across the whole curriculum.  It is not intended to be a prescription for teaching although some advice is given.

• Word 2003, 64kb/5 pages, 08/08/2006, whole_school_policy.doc

Numeracy Across the Curriculum

Follow-up to Numeracy across the Curriculum INSET Day

This pack is to provide ideas following the largely successful InSET days, on ‘Numeracy across the Curriculum’, held in your schools.  We strongly recommend that you do not attempt everything on this list straight away – choose a few items and do them well!

Hertfordshire Numeracy Policy Pack – issued Summer Term 2002

• Customise the policy to make it appropriate for your school
• Order the documents detailed on the last page and consider their purchase, availability and use in other departments
• Consider using some of the ideas/resources in the appendices
• Consider the points for action on the last page

The Mathematics department could:

• Set up a working party to consider cross-curricular issues including numeracy across the curriculum.
• Develop a bank of oral and mental activities/games, which could be used in tutor periods.
• Offer some  InSET from the mathematics department on the teaching of more difficult mathematical topics, eg ratio and proportion
• Have posters explaining mathematical methods and appropriate vocabulary lists on display in subject areas – see sample posters   appendix i.
• Develop a whole school calculator policy
• Provide training for teacher assistants

Consider using your Numeracy across the Curriculum folder to:

• Tackle other sessions from the NaC folder not used on your InSET Day: approach to calculations, calculators, handling data
• Sustain developments  - see p 14 in NaC folder
• Collate answers from session 3 handouts and use teachers responses to prioritise areas for development
• Use/complete handout 4.3

Important points to consider from the Framework:

Taken from the Guide to the Framework p 23
Mathematics Across the Curriculum

• The use of mental and informal written methods, especially with lower attaining pupils
• The expectation that pupils should add and subtract pairs of two-digit numbers mentally
• How and when calculators should be used

Besides the approach to calculation, you need to agree across departments:

• The use of units
• The mathematical notation and terms to be used
• Algebraic and other mathematical techniques, such as how algebraic expressions are to be simplified or how equations are to be solved
• How graphs are to be represented
• How and when ICT resources such as graph plotters or graphical calculators will be used to support mathematics

For ideas in other subject areas see Appendix ii

Important points to consider from the Management Guide: lessons from the pilot

Taken from the Management Guide p 18
Making things happen in practice

The training is the first step: making it happen in all departments is trickier. Like most pilot schools, we found cross-curricular training to be popular. Most staff were prepared to act on the key ideas. We tried to give the cross-curricular work the best chance of success by asking three things:

• All departments were to act on a small number of priorities that were easy to remember and highly relevant to the school
• All departments were to incorporate the agreed priority cross-curricular elements into their teaching plans
• Every member of staff was to try to do specific actions, eg introduce a new teaching technique recommended in the training

Working Party

• Some ideas for this can be found in your NaC folder, session 9, including checklists
• Aim for Numeracy references to be incorporated into other subject schemes of work and lesson plans

for example drawing a pie chart showing the nutritional components of milk in food technology

• Use data obtained in other subject areas for students to analyse in mathematics lessons.
• Introduce some cross-curricular projects

for example designing a gift box in mathematics to be constructed in technology

• Set up two-way lesson observations between mathematics and other subject areas
• Joint planning/teaching across subjects

Examples of what other schools are doing/have done…

• With students:
  Kings Langley School – Maths Circus

• With staff:
  Sandringham School – Key Stage 3 Strategy Group