NUMERACY 

To say that I am proud to be a Maths Leader at Echuca East is an understatement. Our staff and students have had a massive year of learning and growth this year. One of the most important areas of growth for our staff and students has been around improving student anxiety and engagement in maths. We are seeing more and more students excited to be participating in maths challenges and pushing themselves to do their very best in problem solving and day to day maths tasks. We will continue to build on this and extend the students abilities throughout 2023. 

We have worked on creating a Whole School Numeracy Instructional Model and staff are continuing to fine tune it every week to make improvements for our students. The whole school model allows for students to have consistency in what their learning looks like no matter what level they are at within our school. We use similar language, routines and structures to provide that consistency for our students. That in turn reduces student anxiety and allows for more time to be spent learning the various aspects of the maths curriculum. 

This year we have successfully implemented a range of exciting initiatives for our students to further support the engagement levels within all year levels. 

Some of the new initiatives include: 

Times Tables Challenge – Nothing makes me prouder than walking around during yard duty and seeing students challenging each other. I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing the improvements of student’s skills in this area as they progress through to the ‘Eastie Hall of Fame’. 

Maths Backpacks – The Maths Backpacks have been sent home to families on a weekly basis. They allow the entire family to have some fun together, learning all about maths at your child’s level. The students have also had the opportunity to share their learning back at school with their classmates. 

Australian Maths Competition – We had a whopping 23 students participate in the competition this year. I am so humbled to have so many students motivated to challenge themselves and compete against the rest of Australia! The results from the challenge were phenomenal and we hope to run this competition for our students again in 2023.

Victorian Coding Challenge – Our grade 5/6 students have been participating in the coding challenge this semester. The feedback from the students has proven that the program has not only been engaging but also a welcome challenge to some of our high achievers. 

High Achiever Program – We have had 7 students who have qualified to participate in the High Achiever Program. This program is a weekly one-hour online session aimed at pushing these students to their absolute limits to extend their knowledge and problem-solving skills. 

All these amazing opportunities have contributed to the successes of our students in maths this year. We would love you to continue to support and encourage your child at home. I have included some activities you could do to assist in the learning of maths at home. 

• Having a conversation about what your child is learning at school and prompting them to give you examples. 
• Compare prices of different brands whilst in the supermarket. 
• Notice changes in the weather and the time of day. Use an old bottle and create a ‘rain gauge’ to measure and monitor how much it rains.
• Estimate how many jumps it will take to get to… Then count how many jumps it takes to get to…
• Introduce kitchen scales to your mini-shop to weigh foods and order items by weight.
• Play board games with your whole family e.g. Monopoly, snap, go fish. 
• Order the numbers on a set of cards from smallest to largest, or largest to smallest.
• Use specific terms when asking for items. For example, ask your child to get the ‘one-litre’ milk bottle from the fridge or the 500-gram container of butter.
• When cooking, discuss different measurements used, such as teaspoons, millilitres, litres, and cups. Discuss ideas about empty and full.