18 Feb 2018
Last year, the mathematics department started a new numeracy initiative called "Make it Count".
Selected students from Years 7, 8 and 9 participated in the program which used maths games to develop students' numeracy skills.
After extensive research by our instructional leader in numeracy, we decided to create a learning partnership with our students using visible learning. While Year 9 was familiar with visible learning in their literacy Power Up program, our Years 7 and 8 were not. We launched the concept with Years 7 and 8 and introduced the ‘Maths Trees' to all year groups. Every maths lesson, students worked for 15 minutes on numeracy games and as they gained the skill of the outcome they covered a ‘branch'. Students enjoyed playing with dice, cards and dominoes and engaged with the program positively.
The program's success saw a vast improvement in Year 9 NAPLAN results and now we are in our second year of running the program.
In 2018 we are continuing to develop learning partnerships with Years 7, 8 and 9. Students have their trees and even though we are early in the term, are keen to cover their branches, especially the Year 7s.