The Number Box™ can be used in three ways

1. as individual 1:1 Wave Three support for children who need on-going extra teaching for basic maths skills
2. for supporting small groups of children who are not yet able to work with abstract concepts during the daily maths lesson
3. as a second start programme for junior age / second language children

Individual children

• Need 1:1 time – shared time, even with two children, means that one child is always less able and is still seeing themselves as less able.
• Regular / daily practice of known skills allows time for skills and knowledge to be transferred to long term memory.
• Introduction of new skills:

• New skills are only gradually added to the known, and introduced in very small steps.

• All teaching and reinforcement is multi-sensory: hear, see, say and write.
• Children are encouraged to talk about their understanding, difficulties, and use of key vocabulary. Key vocabulary is included on every page to ensure that children hear support staff using the vocabulary, and have an opportunity to use the vocabulary back

Children with English as an Additional Language (EAL)

• Vocabulary and language associated with number is vital for understanding instructions, problem solving, explanations – these children need individual time to acquire and use maths language
• Teaching continues until children have learned basic maths skills for number, time, money, measuring and shape.  There is no fixed or expected length of time for a child to remain on The Number Box™

Dyscalculia

• Specific Learning Difficulties can affect a child’s ability to acquire maths skills, and appropriate multi-sensory teaching needs to be in place before children fail at maths, or become disenchanted with maths
• For some children, the difficulties are developmental and are overcome given time. Those children who need on-going help and continued access to concrete materials will benefit from having already had quality multi-sensory teaching and a structured programme on a regular basis.

Wave Three Provision

• 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 Number 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!

Working with the Number Box™

• Sessions must be positive and supportive, seen as enabling learning.
• The aim is for a child to be able to give an automatic response to the skills covered in The Number Box™
• If a child does not have an instant response they must be reminded instantly – they would respond if they could!
• Each child is responsible for managing the materials in The Number Box™
  – getting out and putting away – so that every child comes to it as a complete unit.
• Never assume that a child will remember something today that they seemed to know yesterday – over-learn, practise and share knowledge until it really is known.
• Daily re-visiting of known skills gives the child the opportunity to speed up responses and to be aware of what it feels like to really know something confidently.

Record Keeping

• Notes should be kept of every session –progress needs to be shared with the child – ‘Now you know….’.
• Keep notes very brief – they can be written while the child is organising the next set of materials.
• Dated notes mean that progress over time is easy to access for report writing, review meetings, external professional visits.
• Consistent note writing enables any other TA or teacher to pick up the booklets and work instantly with the child.