Curious Minds

St Francis Primary Woodland Maths Project Adds up to a Huge Success

St Francis is a very small primary school in Goosnargh, Preston.  Being such a small school, single classes contain pupils with very different needs and abilities and they were keen to offer personalised learning experiences to all.  They also wanted to explore their outdoor space and find ways of making maths accessible for children who don’t respond to traditional teaching.

Creative Agent Michelle Temperley began by helping them unpick and refine their ideas.  The Headteacher commented ‘If I had gone with what I originally thought, what I was determined we were going to do, we wouldn't have had anywhere near as good a process and product as we actually had.’  With a firm sense of their aims, Michelle enlisted experienced outdoor Creative Practitioner Sean Creagh and the ‘Woodland Maths’ project began.  They started with a day in a forest and with the help of the local ranger, Sean, teachers and pupils spent a day playing, exploring and experimenting with maths ‘without clipboards’ so pupils could begin discovering what they actually did enjoy.

This was followed by a play and consultation day in the school grounds.  The pupils identified the areas of maths they found most difficult and least interesting.  They constructed three different temporary spaces in the school grounds and began inventing games and activities to make them exciting.  One pupil commented ‘It's really fun. There's more freedom to try things. It's so much better than being crammed up in a classroom’.  Observing their games, the head teacher commented "I was worried that it was going to remain low level maths, but actually it didn't."  Over the following sessions they developed their ideas and designed and built permanent outdoor maths learning spaces which were flexible enough to accommodate all activities. 

Teachers were amazed at seeing the pupil’s learning progress from play to structured learning games and noticed their attitudes to learning maths shift from resistance to welcoming it as a challenge. The Headteacher commented " We were playing a game with flags doing co-ordinates and they weren't happy - they wanted to do negative co-ordinates and yet I know this is something they've identified they struggle with before."  Michelle noted ‘The children have developed their maths skills significantly, ranging from improved mental arithmetic to understanding and applying maths concepts.’

To spread the learning across the school, teachers supported the year 5 and 6 pupils to plan and run maths activity lessons for younger pupils.  The pupils were nervous about doing this and even on the delivery day they were adapting and refining the activities and inventing new ones, showing a mature awareness of the need to pitch activities and appreciation of others learning needs.  These were filmed and edited into learning videos which will be used as a classroom resource in the future.

The children were aware of their teacher learning alongside them, saying ‘she didn't know if it was going to work’ but ‘she gets it now.  The head teacher agreed "It's good for them to know that we've been challenged by it, that we don't always find it easy."  Teachers commented on being surprised at just how independently pupils were working by the end of the project.  

The project was a challenge for teachers and children alike, but it seems that everyone’s efforts have had the desired effect.  In the recent PIPS questionnaires (Performance Indicators in Primary Schools) year 5 children all recorded their enjoyment of maths as high – definitely not the result generally expected. The Headteacher said "If I left them in the space for 10 minutes now I would be confident they would be doing maths."

So, ‘Woodland Maths’ has added up to a huge success.  Staff are now working on how they can extend the same approach to other areas of the curriculum, as well as sharing their learning, resources and new space with neighbouring schools.

Kelly Allen
Curious Minds