Wave Three Provision • Working With The Box

  • It is a highly personalised intervention:

    • Individual recording booklets follow a route through the progression of skills which is vital for maths.

    • Number Box time is intended to be part of classroom provision in Reception and Year 1, and can be carried out in either brief, planned sessions, or in ‘spare’ 5 minutes in the classroom.

    • Children do not miss anything which may happen in the classroom as the sessions are short and are designed to be class based.

    • The Box can be used beyond Year 1, and has been successfully used up to Year 6 and early secondary using timetabled TA support until children are able to work with abstract concepts.

  • Early skills are practised in every session:

    • Confident knowledge of these skills needs time and continued practice to become automatic.

  • Children manage all the materials:

    • Taking ownership of the materials encourages ownership of learning and responsibility for the sharing back of understanding.

    • Learned helplessness is ‘designed out‘ of the teaching.

Factors which make learning possible

  • Good self esteem

  • Thorough understanding of basic skills

  • Taking advantage of a child’s preferred learning style

  • Motivation

  • Personal organisation

  • Early learning of referencing skills

  • Time to consolidate known skills

Factors which inhibit learning

  • Poor self esteem

  • Fear of failure

  • Shaky understanding due to absences, specific learning difficulties, slower learning abilities

  • Learned helplessness

  • Fight or flight responses to test situations

  • Death by worksheet syndrome!