01842 668080
Organisation: Helmingham Community Primary School
Intervention: Catch Up® Numeracy
Submitted by: Bernie Cleland
Background
At Helmingham, we believe that all our pupils are valued and cared for. Learning and teaching is tailored to individual needs; a creative and stimulating curriculum helps to engage the children and we make excellent use of our school grounds and local environment. The school has been using Catch Up® Numeracy as part of our involvement with a research project to look at the effectiveness of Catch Up® Numeracy. We wanted to take part in the project because we have identified additional support for numeracy as a priority and the project gave us the opportunity to find out whether Catch Up® Numeracy could make a difference for our pupils.
Implementation
The Catch Up® Numeracy sessions were timetabled to take place twice each week during the mornings. The pupils were identified using a range of information as potentially being able to benefit from extra support. We made sure that parents knew about the sessions and got their permission. We used a standardised test to measure the pupils’ numeracy ages before they had any Catch Up® support and again after two terms. The children improved with their number ages and in the progress that they made through the Catch Up® levels.
We had two staff trained - one of our Teaching Assistants was selected to work with the children and we also had a member of staff trained to be the Catch Up® coordinator. The coordinator was able to make sure that the TA had the necessary resources such as number lines and counters and that the TA could keep to their timetable. The coordinator did the full Catch Up® Numeracy training and was able to help with the TA’s queries. The coordinator also observed some of the sessions. This helped to make sure that the children’s sessions went well and provided evidence for the TA’s OCN accreditation.
Case Study 1 - Catch Up® Numeracy
Child A (Year 4) struggled with numeracy since year 2, making slow progress in year 3. The initial assessment showed a standardised score of 69.
She responded well to the sessions and built up a good relationship with the member of staff delivering the intervention. Child A reported that she has more confidence with her numeracy, particularly addition and multiplication and the project was fun. During the project, she was able to see how she could achieve and then take this in to the classroom and be successful. Now in year 5, she is more confident and will ask questions and volunteer answers.
At the end of Catch Up®, Child A had improved her standardised score to 78, an increase of 9 and had an average ratio gain of 3.3. This has had a positive impact on her self-esteem and engagement in numeracy lessons.
Aims
To provide a stimulating, challenging environment and to encourage a positive attitude towards learning.