Having fun with numbers

National Numeracy Week was a runaway success, with 135 students and 12 staff completed quizzes for the honour of winning an Adult Education Wolverhampton bag packed with goodies. What about the sweets? 55 staff and students had a go at guessing the number in the jar.

It was wonderful hearing teachers' stories of how students responded to the quiz and how it was used as a starter activity in some classes. One teacher reported how her students decided to work as a team to find answers to each question. Students split themselves into small groups, with each group taking responsibility for finding answers to specific questions. They used their ICT skills to find answers, even locating the Self-Assessment Report to find the total number of students who attended classes in 2017/18. One student explained the patterns in the number sequence question to the whole group with great clarity so that everyone could work out the next two numbers for themselves.

Thanks to everyone who encouraged or brought students to the maths activity events held in the café area. Students really enjoyed completing different games, puzzles and identifying maths they used every day. There were occasions when the maths team feared for the survival of the sweets as there were a few occasions when it had to be wrestled from hungry students and, on occasions from staff. Maybe we need to have sweets for everyone next year.

It goes without saying that the events organised during National Numeracy Week involved many staff from across different teams:

• Reception team distributed and collected quizzes and sign posted everyone to the café event each day
  
• Marketing team who publicised the week long celebrations and took photographs which perfectly captured maths fun in the café area
  
• Sites team for their help in setting up the café area.
  
• Maths team who created games, puzzles, quizzes and staffed the café area whilst continuing to teach their classes
  
• Everyone, especially teachers, who brought students to play games and complete puzzles in the café area.