New tips to take away maths fear factor for parents

Education Secretary Kirsty Williams has launched new learning materials, including online videos, aimed at getting more parents involved in their children’s maths homework (Mon 5th Sept).

The new resources, which have been developed with input from three Welsh numeracy experts, aim to make it less stressful for parents or carers helping out with their children’s maths homework. Booklets have been produced, and published online today, and include four maths calculations, at a level appropriate to each age group. Accompanying videos (dolen allanol) have also been produced, and filmed in a homework scenario, to demonstrate to parents and carers how best to help with each calculation.

Education Secretary Kirsty Williams said,

“We recognise the importance of parental engagement being the vital link between school and the home and have been speaking to parents and carers about how they can help.

“One recurring concern seems to be a fear of maths and how they can support their child at home. Our new learning resource has been produced to encourage them to engage with their children and support them with their maths homework and it comes just in time for the start of a new school year.

“Being able to help children to develop those all-important life skills at home – being curious, confident and ready to learn – will help make it a positive and exciting experience from their very first day.”

The home environment is the single biggest factor in educational attainment and by creating an environment that supports a child’s learning, parents can give their child a significant head start in life.

The new tools form part of the Education Begins at Home campaign to help bridge the learning gap between the most affluent and deprived pupils by demonstrating to parents and carers how the little things they do at home can help their child in school.

The hard copy booklets to accompany the videos will be distributed to all schools in Wales on 26 September.