Winchelsea Primary uses Mathletics to improve the school’s overall performance in maths

About the schoolWinchelsea Primary School is a smaller than average sized school based in the rural village of Ruskington in Lincolnshire. With approximately 210 children aged between 3 and 11 Winchelsea prides itself on being a school where ‘everyone is a learner’ and ‘everyone is valued’.

The school is rated ‘Good’ by Ofsted and is an inclusive establishment where wellbeing and community are at the heart of learning. Winchelsea believes in providing its pupils with a varied and interesting curriculum in order to make lessons fun and embed a love of learning in all its pupils.

What were the challenges? James Keetch is the maths lead at Winchelsea Primary School. He introduced Mathletics to the classroom four years ago after moving from his former school where the resource helped children improve key maths skills.

“There were a number of challenges which I identified when I first started as the maths lead at Winchelsea. Firstly, children needed to improve the speed of their mental calculation. This was a key target, particularly for our Key Stage 2 children in the run up to their SATs examinations and the transition to the more advanced maths they’d face at secondary level.

“Over the last couple of years we’ve also identified problem solving and reasoning as areas to target. Reasoning presented an additional difficulty as many of our parents were unfamiliar with worded questions and felt they weren’t in a position to help their children with this ‘new’ style of maths.

“Finally, we were experiencing a lot of trouble engaging some children in maths. Many of the boys in particular lacked confidence and weren’t willing to attempt any form of problem-solving. We needed to change the perception of maths as simply ‘too difficult’ and ‘boring’ before we could improve their skills.”

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A rural primary school uses Mathletics game-based approach to learning to become one of Lincolnshire’s top schools in its latest SATs results for maths.

How is Mathletics meeting these challenges?

“Each class has two sessions a week which take place in the ICT suite and at least one of these is dedicated to Mathletics. Many of our teachers use it as a whole-class resource on the interactive whiteboard as well as an intervention tool for small groups. As Mathletics is learner-led, a teaching assistant is able to lead this group while I continue teaching the rest of the class. This learner-led element also makes Mathletics an excellent platform for homework.”

Since introducing the resource four years ago we now use Mathletics across all year groups, including in early years.

When using Mathletics in lessons, teachers will usually set up pupils’ accounts so they’re restricted to the topics that have been taught in class. If they complete these sections they can move on to the other activities or to the Live Mathletics game where they’re able to compete against other children – either classmates or other pupils around the world – in real-time. This area is a particular favourite!

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Would you recommend Mathletics?“We already do! Mathletics has enthused our pupils and convinced them that maths is exciting. It’s also a great tool for our teachers who use it to help identify children’s strengths and weaknesses. The improvements we’ve seen in our school results speak for themselves!”

What are the overall results?“Overall, pupils’ confidence in maths has skyrocketed. Due to the engaging features within Mathletics children are willing to spend time on the resource and re-attempt answers, rather than just giving up when faced with a difficult question. The boys in particular have really engaged with the competitive elements within Live Mathletics and with the Multiverse module - an immersive game designed to increase multiplication fact fluency and recall.

“As a result of this increased confidence the speed of children’s mental calculations has improved, which was reflected in the school’s latest Ofsted report. Pupils’ reasoning skills have also developed in recent months; before using Mathletics children would often skip questions which involved explaining their answer whereas they now understand the methodology behind the work they’ve completed.

“On a whole-school level the best outcome of Mathletics has been seeing our overall performance in maths improve. Four years ago we were performing well but are now ranked fifth in the county for our SATs results in maths. We’re incredibly proud.

“Parents have also engaged more with their children’s progress in maths thanks to the certificates generated by the resource which we award to children in Friday assemblies. Children are excited to come into school to tell us they’ve been playing Mathletics with their parents.”