Numeracy

Introduction

Adults with strong numeracy skills have better health, stronger and more varied employment prospects, higher earnings, easier access to training opportunities and to higher level qualifications, and better access to good housing. Carpentieri, J. D. and Litster, J. (NRDC 2009)

Changing attitudes is central to NIACE's work this year. Adults often think they are bad at maths or that it's not relevant to their lives.

"People who work out complicated bets in their head often call it common sense, not maths; they keep the "maths" word for things they can't do.  Many of us have a very narrow range of what we call maths but it can be a very creative subject." Joan O'Hagan, an associate of the NCETM

In September NIACE is offering Maths Messenger Sessions for information, advice and guidance workers, youth workers, administrators, managers, ULRs, housing officers, social workers, museums and libraries staff to introduce a range of engaging maths activities and provide participants with an enjoyable, stimulating mathematical experience.

NIACE, unionlearn and the National Centre for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics    (NCETM) are working together to encourage people to tackle numeracy, take-up numeracy learning and have fun with maths. The joint campaign makes links with Union Learning Reps and front line workers in a range of community settings to challenge the culture that 'it's ok to be bad at maths'.  Our joint website www.maths4us.org has news, resources and case studies.

What is Numeracy?

We use the terms numeracy, maths and mathematics interchangeably and accept Diana Coben's definition below.

To be numerate means to be competent, confident, and comfortable with one's judgements on whether to use mathematics in a particular situation and if so, what mathematics to use, how to do it, what degree of accuracy is appropriate, and what the answer means in relation to the context.

Coben, D., 2000, Numeracy, mathematics and adult learning. Adult Numeracy Development: Theory, research, practice. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press

Numeracy counts for adults: a national inquiry into numeracy learning

This report is now available.

How can NIACE support you?

NIACE's numeracy strategy supports adults to recognise the maths they can do, develop their skills and apply them across a range of settings. We offer a range of resources and professional development courses.  For more information, please contact sue.southwood@niace.org.uk.