Creative Maths

School Improvement:

Curriculum Programmes

• Numeracy and Creative Maths
• Creative Curriculum
• ICT

The Arts:

Skills Development

• Skills‐based programmes – animation/drawing/collage/3D
• Professional development opportunities

Description:

Inspire creative teaching and learning in maths through artist-led workshops. Projects enable pupils to visualise and understand maths processes through hands on, applied activities that make their learning effective, engaging and fun.

Example activities include:

• Understanding Numbers: Pupils explore the relationship between numerals and value by creating model characters for each number. These can be developed into stories relating to their value, which can be performed, made into simple animations, or recorded.
• Recognising Numerals – Number Snap: Pupils make drawings of numbers and quantities and play snap to match the number to the quantity, increasing their recognition of numerals.
• Handling Data: Pupils explore handling data and measures through scaled sculptures, models and comparison mapping.
• Animating Angles: Pupils create their own 2D birds to be placed into a maths forest, each bird with their beak open to a specific angle.
• Understanding Weights: Pupils weigh different materials such as sand, wood and polystyrene balls to a fixed weight. These materials are then used to create individual sculptures - with different volumes of each material required to reach the given weight. and own lines of enquiry.

Illustrative Outputs:

• Artist-led workshop sessions in school
• Original artworks – 2D, 3D and animations
• An exhibition of the children’s work
• Films and animations used as an ongoing teaching resource
• Activities embedded into school planning

Outcomes and Impact (taken from a whole school Creative Maths programme):

• An increased willingness to have a go at maths and to take more risks in their work 
• Raised attainment, for example Year 5 children all demonstrated significant progress, including 25% of children progressing two sublevels
• Children’s perceptions of maths improved
• Children developed new skills in film, model making, drawing, sound and photography
• Teachers’ perceptions of creative teaching and learning improved, resulting in an increased awareness that it can be far-reaching and influence attainment
• Children who lacked confidence and motivation made considerable progress
• Creative teaching and learning strategies demonstrated and disseminated amongst staff

Project Costs:

From £480 + materials per class group (based on three workshop sessions @ £135 + £75 planning)
Costs vary dependent on the number of groups and workshop sessions