Susan Morton, who teaches at Donibristle Primary School in Dunfermline, won a practitioner award last year from SCRE, the Scottish Centre for Research in Education based at Glasgow University, for her practice-based project, 'Promoting number and mathematical development in nursery through staff development'.
The project's aim was to raise awareness among staff about how children learn number and mathematical concepts, improve the nursery's delivery of this aspect of the curriculum and encourage children's abilities and understanding.
Ms Morton said, 'I think it has raised our professional awareness and helped the team spirit. The staff were wanting to find out about how children learn and I wrote up how we went about tackling awareness of numeracy and maths.' Work took place during part of the academic years 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 and involved up to 160 nursery children. Discussion about how to improve children's learning in numeracy and maths was addressed during weekly staff meetings, and progress was reviewed regularly.
Before starting, the nursery identified the available resources and agreed to compile a resource bank to make copies of different handouts easily accessible.
As part of the research, children were involved in some counting-out activity at least once a week in the snack area, for example counting out one apple, two plums or eight grapes. Most children were able to recognise 'one' and 'two' but had difficulty with the higher numbers. During the study they became more confident about counting out at snack time, counting two of one thing and four of another. They also helped each other to count.
This was found to be 'an easy way of introducing numbers in a meaningful way' and showed children who could recognise symbols but could not count out numbers, and vice versa.
Other activities included playing games, naming blocks, number games on the computer, a bird count and a 'cake game' involving dice, played to encourage children to take turns.
The study found 'staggering' results when four pre-school and two ante-pre-school children were observed closely in various activities over a month to find out more about their ability to learn maths and numbers. Staff found out which children could count and which needed support, and discovered that the language children used in play was often mathematical. At the jigsaw table children used positional words such as 'underneath' and 'alongside' naturally. Mathematical language was used in context in baking activities, with one child able to read the scales, and children demonstrated problem solving during block play.
By the end of the project practitioners had gained confidence in the activities used to promote early numeracy skills and developed greater knowledge and understanding of the competencies involved.
The report, published by SCRE in Spotlight 88, can be viewed at www.scre.ac.uk.