Maths Week England was set up in 2019 with the goal of ensuring that no children miss out on the opportunities that being a confident competent mathematician can give them.
The week will take place during the 8th to 12th November 2021. If you are planning on taking part in the week, LGfL has a range of resources that can support you, for use in assemblies, in class and also for engaging with parents. You can also register to receive updates from Maths Week England themselves here.
LGfL Resources
The ever-popular Busy Things; has a host of maths quizzes, games and the Maths Resource Maker (as shown in the video below). The resource maker allows making your own customised worksheets (including tens frames, counting and sequencing worksheets and even maths displays).
There is also a range of quizzes and games all searchable within the "curriculum browser" within Busy Things or by using the "special events" tool with your teacher login.
Once you have found what you are looking for, you can send a "Busy Blast" to your pupils if you have configured BusyThings to set up classes. Refer back to this blog for more information about getting this set up in your school.
They also have a series of "Busy at Home" activities that could be shared with parents and carers during Maths Week London. You can find them here.
J2eToolsuite has a range of maths tools that can be used in class. Why not get your students to use TtBlast Live? If you are a two or bigger form entry school perhaps the classes in Key Stage 2 could compete against each other? You could also see which pupil manages to win the most often and is the ultimate winner; perhaps all the class/year group winners could then go on to compete to see who the ultimate TtBlast Champion is.
You could also get your Year 2 and Year 6 children to practise in the SATsblast (mental arithmetic) and establish which maths topics they find most tricky. In J2Vote, they could conduct a school survey and then present the data in J2Data or you could use the J2Database to look at the examples (e.g the Titanic passenger list or a dinosaur database which have been made by users).
You can also set up collaborative databases, where they collect data from classmates and then interpret and represent this data.
Maths at Home is a fantastic resource to share with parents the resource is designed to provide support for busy parents that wish to help their child with their mathematical development at home. A video has been made for every single NC descriptor for the whole of KS1 and 2 as well as an overview video for Early Years. Each video is a snapshot of how many schools may teach the particular strand, and also provides examples of how parents could support their child at home. Where appropriate, video content is reinforced with a selection of downloadable resources.
Maths at Home videos are designed to feel like they are taking place on a table at home, encouraging communication, conversation and lots of fun while working on them. The video resources are designed to bring Maths to life, highlighting learning opportunities within cookery, play, decorating and gardening. Most importantly, they are designed to ignite conversations between children and parents and to make Maths a positive and enjoyable experience outside of school. It would be a great resource to highlight to parents on the day perhaps by inviting parents in for a special number assembly.
Maths in the Real World does exactly what its title suggests; it puts maths into real-world problems and contexts. The detailed differentiation and detailed lesson plans and resources ensure there is something for all ability levels. Some of the real-world topics covered in the resource include: Search and Rescue (with the HM Coastguard), Nutrition, Sporting Decisions and Round the World.
Maths doesn’t get more real than an HM Coastguard search & rescue mission. Featuring exclusive footage of real‐life rescues at sea, lifeboat and helicopter searches, and rescue coordination at the National Maritime Operations Centre, pupils can see mathematical problem‐solving in action – real life, with real consequences. Topics covered include Bearings, Pythagoras and Trigonometry, Algebra, Vectors and Speed, Distance and Time. Watch the trailer below to learn more:
Other free resources that you could access in order to further promote maths in your schools:
MathsBots.com from Jonathan Hall@StudyMaths are tools for maths teachers including 'GCSE Resources' and 'Manipulatives' (pictorial images to support the Concrete, Pictorial and Abstract CPA approach to the teaching of maths).
Mathlearningcenter.org (note the American spelling!) based on the visual models featured in Bridges in Mathematics.
I See Maths by Gareth Metcalfe has a great range of free and subscription resources. If you want to look for the free resources click on the "Free Resources" tab; the Early Years drop-down has a large bank of visual games.
There is also the EdShed; within this is the Mathematics Shed curated and organised by Graham Andre. It is a collection of videos and resources to help you teach maths in an engaging way, there are a huge number of 'sheds' including the warm-up shed, addition shed and a maths topic shed to name a few.
Smash Maths is an online Primary maths programme where students revisit and practise every area of the maths curriculum every week. The programme is created by leading national experts Sarah-Anne Fernandes and Trevor Dixon. Their philosophy is to systematically revisit all content areas of the curriculum every week, so that learning retention is improved significantly over time. This they believe is particularly pertinent after the national lockdowns to support children in consolidating their maths learning and catch up.
The programme uses a variety of questions that use logic and reasoning and guarantees high quality, varied practice and are aligned with national SATs questions to prepare children for key assessments. The Spiral Practice has 8 questions covering each content domain to complete weekly; with expected standard year group content phased into each Spiral Practice as pupils progress through the maths curriculum. The Practices align to White Rose curriculum maps, so pupils will only be given questions on what they have already learnt (ie revisiting learning, not new content). Every question has expert video feedback.
The Spiral Practice is available for free to teachers to use for every pupil in schools, (however there is an additional service for parents where they can purchase the SMASH maths full programme). If you are interested in accessing the Spiral Practice for your school and want to find out more contact https://www.smashmaths.org/schools. They can get all your pupils set up to complete free Spiral Practice in school (and set up a dedicated school landing page for parents should they wish to purchase the SMASH Maths full programme).
Please let us know if you use any of our resources to support your Maths Week England @maths_week #MWE21 or indeed have suggestions for how LGfL could further support you in school by posting on LGfL’s Twitter or Facebook.
Blogpost edited from the previous one on this theme posted in 2020.