Many parents may think they left mathematics at the school gate but, of course, it permeates every aspect of our day-to-day life, from cooking and checking bills to working out how long it will take us to reach home.

A quick round of the supermarket shelves is enough to remind us how much we need and use maths skills ('99p per 100g', 'four for £3.00', '10 per cent off', 'reduced by a third').

In the revised Early Years Foundation Stage, Mathematics is divided into two aspects:

Each aspect sets out some 'early learning goals' that a child is expected to reach by the end of Reception year, at the age of five:

'Numbers: children count reliably with numbers from 1 to 20, place them in order and say which number is one more or one less than a given number. Using quantities and objects, they add and subtract two single-digit numbers and count on or back to find the answer. They solve problems, including doubling, halving and sharing.

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