Maxwell Road, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire HP9 1RG

St Mary and All Saints Church of England Primary School

Maxwell Road, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire HP9 1RG

Telephone: (01494) 673762 FAX: (01494) 674757

Email:

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10 February 2015

Dear Parents,

Numeracy Passport – Mental Calculation

This term, we are introducing an exciting new initiative across the school called 'Numeracy Passport'. This starts in Reception and runs all the way up to Year 6 and aims to equip children with strategies to instantly recall basic number facts. The ‘Numeracy Passport’ was originally designed by Ray Maher, an independent Maths consultant, and has been used successfully to improve attainment in Mathematics in many primary schools nationally. At St Mary and All Saints, we have adapted the passport to provide further challenge for our pupils. This supports our School Improvement for Mathematics this year.

How does the passport work?

Next half term, each child will be giventheir own copy of the passportwhich will be kept in school as a record of their progression in basic number skills. This will stay with them as they move through the school. All children have been given a baseline assessment which has determined which country they will start their passport journey on and children will progress through the objectives at their own pace.

At first, it may seem that children are working on objectives that they are already able to access using a range of mental and written strategies, however the purpose is for your child to develop their instant mental recall. This means that they need to know the answers instantly, without having to use any mental strategies to work them out.

The class teachers will work with your child once a week to check their progress and assess them on their targets at regular intervals by administering a timed task. The passport targets will also be incorporated into the children's mental and oral starters in Numeracy lessons. Once the child has successfully completed three timed tasks for an objective, then it will be marked as achieved in their Numeracy Passport. Children continue to practice and be assessed on the remaining targets until all of the targets for a country have been achieved. Once they have achieved all of the objectives for the country they are working on, they will receive a certificate of achievement and will move onto a new set of targets and the next country.

How to help at home
We would ask that you spend 10 minutes each evening practising your child’s passport skills with them. This could be in the car, at teatime, before bed – it doesn’t need to be a sit down, formal time. After half term, we will issue a parental help pack that will explain the objectives in more detail and offer suggestions as to how you can help your child achieve their targets at home.

If you have any questions about the Numeracy Passport, please do not hesitate to speak to your child’s class teacher.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs E Kilner

Headteacher