Melanie Bramwell in our Borders Partnership has recently become involved in the Maths Hubs project Mastering number https://www.ncetm.org.uk/maths-hubs-projects/mastering-number-at-reception-and-ks1/ and here is what she has to say about her experience of this project so far.

Through online training and face to face sessions the project aims to ensure that all children will develop good number sense, use subitising without being reminded, and see amounts within amounts to further support cardinality skills.

Initially, I was sceptical about the effectiveness of the project with children who already have good number sense and can talk confidently about the composition of number. How was it any different to what I was already teaching using a mastery approach in the classroom? It was the claim that children who were less confident with subitising would be able to follow the programme and achieve the same success as peers, which interested me as our current Year 2 cohort would benefit from this knowledge.

I am six weeks into the Year 1 programme using it in my mixed KS1 class, as a whole class 15 minute session. There are four sessions a week with resources and PowerPoint slides to support and there is good evidence to show that our less able children are much more confident with numbers and can subitise, recognise equal sets, find doubles and talk about why they have made their choice. It is also providing able children with language and skills when working with addition and subtraction of two digit numbers.

I am really looking forward to the overall impact later in the school year.

Written by Melanie Bramwell, Borders Partnership