The people bringing maths into context in Wiltshire
We're being told not to settle for 'not having a maths brain'
Poor numeracy skills are easier to hide than poor literacy skills, according to a Wiltshire maths champion.
We’ve been told by Louise Al-Wardany, a Wiltshire Multiply project officer, that around 49% of adults in the UK have the numeracy skills expected of a primary school child, that equates to roughly 17 million people.
That’s according to research by the National Numeracy Trust.
The Department of Education has launched the Multiply project to help those with the lowest levels of numeracy skills.
Louise told Greatest Hits Radio that we don’t often spot poor numeracy skills.
“If you had somebody that came up to you and said, ‘I'm not sure, I can't read,’ people jump on that because there's this expectation that you should be able to read, and if you can't, something needs to be done,” she said.
Louise added: “It seems to be widely accepted that people can just say I can't do maths and it doesn’t seem to matter.”
Education wasn't contextual, until now
Maths is more present in our lives than we realise, Louise explained to us, but she said we tend not realise it.
“(Maths) is there all the time. But people don't realise that it's maths in the same way that I suppose they do with literacy and I think because when anybody speaks about maths, they think about that kind of pure math that they were taught in school.
“They're not thinking about it contextually for themselves.”
Louise told us that a group on the Multiply course had been able to bring maths into context through gardening.
In designing the garden, the group had to work out the area of the garden plot and how much space certain plants might need.
“For a lot of the people that then attended that course, they went, ‘oh, actually, I'm better at maths than I thought I was and I feel more confident using those numbers now.’
“We even had people that went on to say I quite enjoyed learning the maths element of this and I want to go on and do more.”
Don't settle for not having a maths brain
The team at Wiltshire Multiply want to make maths fun and interesting, in a bid to help people realise they’re better at maths than they realise.
The courses are aimed at people without grade C level maths, which has been benchmarked as being a level 2 qualification.
But it’s also for people who first did maths a long time ago.
“If you did maths 30-40 years ago, you're not going to feel as confident now if you haven't been using or can't see how it's worked for you contextually.”
Louise says we shouldn’t accept that ‘not having a maths brain is good enough’.
Wiltshire Council are holding a pair of events this week, where we can meet the Multiply team and find out more about the services that are available to us.