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Houghton Community Nursery School has collaborated with Durham University to produce a research-based project focused around mathematics.

The ’Young minds, Big maths’ project encourages collaboration between practitioners and young mathematicians to explore deeper mathematical ideas in an engaging way. It aims to build maths confidence amongst practitioners and early years settings through high quality CPD for mathematicians.

The project looks to encourage practitioners to think more deeply about the opportunities which they provide children within their specific setting. It takes a child-led approach by focusing on the mathematical thinking that already takes place in young children.

The school recently hosted an event for early years practitioners which was attended by over 60 delegates. The morning session was centred around the impact of the project on the staff and children at the school along with the plans to expand the project through the next year with the funding secured from Durham  University. The school has set up a mathematical learning community which will launch in the new school year with half termly meetings exploring a range of mathematical concepts and how to make the children’s learning more forward thinking.

The attendees of the event were incredibly enthusiastic about the project saying

“The event has made me realise that Maths is everywhere and its not about filling children up with knowledge, but to make their learning organic and suitable to them in that moment.”

“I have never thought to explore such high level concepts with such young children.”

“I now have a very different view of maths in early years, we need to offer more depth and not a narrow path way.”

“A lot of our teachers do not feel they are mathematically literate and so feel they often miss opportunities to further children’s knowledge. This form of CPD could fill the gaps.

Schools North East Director, Chris Zarraga said:

“Houghton Nursery School has done a fantastic job of bringing maths practitioners together and having them think critically about teaching maths in the Early Years. This stage is key as it is the beginning of the children’s development academically, this project has found a way to ensure that the teaching of maths will continue to develop across multiple schools through regular CPD sessions and half termly meetings.”

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