Supporting parents to help their children’s mathematical development
Context and background:
Margaret McMillan is a Nursery school and Children’s Centre with a wide range of activities for children under
5 and their families.
The school has 3 nursery classes which offer part-time and full-time places to children aged 3-5 years. The
school also has additional day-care for children under 3 and wrap around care for 3-5 year olds. Situated at
the north end of Islington, the school serves a community which benefits from a very wide social, racial and
ethnic mix. Typically more than twenty languages are spoken by families using the school and a wide cultural
diversity is shared and enjoyed. The school is committed to working closely with parents to provide the best
opportunities for the children.
The school is set in nearly an acre of garden and operates the garden nursery model pioneered by Margaret
McMillan in the early 1900s. There is a strong commitment to team work throughout the school so staff can
support each other and offer the children a rich and varied, child centred curriculum.
CAME has been an established provision of the local Education Action Zone, a KS1 and Foundation course
was offered to all Zone schools. PRSN (Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy) had been identified as a
key focus in the school development plan for 2011-2012. As a preparation for the SDP focus the school
worked alongside the LEA EY maths advisor. An audit of provision and subject knowledge was completed
and a strategy plan drawn up. The school took up the opportunity of CAME training to widen subject
knowledge particularly in regard to considering current thinking about mathematics learning and teaching;
ways of working and sharing expertise.
The teacher on the course has particular responsibility for running courses for families and some particularly
targeted to helping parents understand how to support their child with PRSN.
At the same time the school was involved in ACT (Adult-Child Interaction Tally Count) training which was part
of a wider Every Child a Talker (ECAT) initiative. The CAME course complemented ACT with the emphasis
on the adult’s role in facilitating mathematical thinking. In CAME, effort and participation are praised and not
the ‘right answer’.
The CAME course provided a good balance between theory and practice. Having the opportunity to try out
CAME activities with children in the afternoon was invaluable. The plenary led by the CAME tutor at the end
of the practical session was crucial in giving confidence and inspiring the course members to use the CAME
approach in their schools.
Overview of project
The teacher was able to use many of the ideas from Let’s Think! Early Years in running a specific Maths
course for parents and their children. The group were very apprehensive about Maths saying ‘I hated it at
school’. Using some of the CAME activities with the parents gave them an insight into mathematical thinking.
Buttons, Activity 6 (from Let’s Think Early Years) was used with the parents. It gave them an opportunity to
understand the process of classification. When they then worked with their children in sorting and classifying,
they understood the complexity of task.
One parent said ‘The course has helped broaden my understanding of how my son is learning about
mathematical concepts and has made me think generally about how I support my son’s learning in literacy,
arts as well as Maths’.
The teacher tried out the activities with small groups of children in the nursery. She found that even though
this was at best weekly, some of the children were able to describe the previous task and could express that
they needed to think and tell the group what they were thinking.
Some activities were more successful than others and these tended to be when ‘real’ objects’ were used. For
instance, Activity 10 Holes (from Let’s Think) where causality is explored, provided the opportunity for a
collection of items such as slotted spoons, colanders, sieves, buttons etc. to be used. The group liked
handling the objects and lively discussion ensued. By now the group were familiar with prefacing their ideas
with ‘I agree/disagree because........ In this case they all agreed that a funnel had two holes while the
practitioner was the only one who disagreed. The children were very specific in demonstrating why they
thought there were two holes.
Children who have English as an additional language benefited from these small group tasks. They were able
to respond well to the social construction of the group and to ‘modelling’ by the teacher of aspects of the
learning process. The teacher was able to observe closely and contribute to the wider record keeping and
assessment.
Review
The teacher found the CAME course very useful in challenging thinking about Maths and where
children’s misconceptions arise. This was particularly helpful in working with parents.
The groups of children who were involved in CAME activities made a great deal of progress in working in a
group and expressing and discussing their ideas. The teacher found that the CAME tasks were able to make
the children more aware of their own thinking and reasoning strategies in solving problems. Asking such
young children (aged between 3-4 years) to speculate metacognitively was quite a challenge. However it did
show when a child had really understood the reason they had given. This was apparent at the end of Activity
1; Colourful Flowers (Let’s Think Early Years). When the adult asked ‘Are there other times when you put
things in groups together? A child was immediately able to give an example from the classroom ‘When we
tidy up the big bricks- we put the long ones together’.
Further courses for parents are planned and CAME tasks will be used again to highlight how children might
think mathematically.
The CAME tasks would be very useful for the nursery staff to engage with and examine their own reasoning,
thinking and strategies used. The teacher who did CAME would be able to facilitate this at INSET.
Further work with new groups of children is planned. Other staff members would then be able to observe a
CAME activity before trying it out. There is a wide range of staff in the nursery so this ‘rolling out’ would need
to be planned carefully.
Contact:
stravers@margaretmcmillan.islington.sch.uk
November 2011