Why parents can

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Empowering parents to support children's maths
learning
Tim Jay, Jo Rose, Ben Simmons Graduate School of
Education, University of Bristol
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Background

• Previous project Childrens economic activity
  and mathematics learning
• Investigated childrens (8, 11, 14 years old)
  out-of-school economic activity through
  combination of activities
• Explored the mathematical thinking in these
  activities in focus groups and then, in
  subsequent studies, in classroom activity

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Moving forward

• Children engage in a great variety of economic
  activity, providing a valuable resource for
  mathematical thinking
• The extent to which this resource is understood
  as such by children varies
• We agree, to some extent, with Hughes et al.
  that schools may struggle to incorporate the
  diversity of out-of-school learning in classroom
  activity

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Related work

• What do we know about parents and their
  childrens maths learning?
• Home maths talk appears to be important in
  various ways e.g. Bloom Wynn, 1992 Chang,
  Sandhofer Brown, 2011 Melhuish et al. 2008
• But much of this kind of research is with
  preschool children and early number concepts

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Related work

• Existing literature often focuses on parents
  abilities to help with classroom tasks
• Cultural capital (e.g. Chiu Xihua, 2008) and
  engagement with extra-curricular activities (Fan
  Williams, 2009) are predictors of maths
  self-efficacy and achievement
• Evidence on homework is mixed (Patall, Cooper
  Robinson, 2008)

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Engagement with maths

• Concerns about adult numeracy in UK e.g.
  Houtkoop Jones, 1999, reporting on OECD survey
  (and more recent publication of latest OECD
  survey)
• Skills for Life survey (BIS, 2012) found that
  approximately half of adults aged 16-65 had
  numeracy abilities below the average 11 year-old
• Few recent large-scale assessments of attitudes,
  but picture is generally negative (e.g. Williams,
  2008)

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Engagement with schools

• Schools often good at engaging parents in school
  life, but more difficult to engage parents in
  pupil learning (Harris Goodall, 2008)
• Evidence for a lack of confidence, resulting from
  misunderstandings of what children do, and
  differences with parents experiences (e.g.
  Peters et al., 2008)
• Hard-to-reach parents v. hard-to-reach
  schools (Crozier Davies, 2007) some
  difficulties result from a deficit model of
  parenting abilities

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Our project

• Parent-centred, not school- or curriculum-centred
• Empowering parents to support their childrens
  maths learning
• 2 overall aims
• Support parents in exploring the mathematics that
  is involved in their everyday family lives
• Support parents in exploring ways to share this
  mathematical thinking with their children

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Focus groups

• 20 Bristol primary schools (out of approx 100)
• Wide variety of settings (markers including
  achievement, EAL, FSM, geographical location,
  size)

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Content

• Feelings about childrens maths learning
• Attitudes to maths
• Engagement with childrens school maths learning
• Experience of out-of-school maths with children

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Main findings

• Parents think maths is important
• Greater opportunity options following school
• Maths is life maths is part of so many
  activities that it is important for quality of
  life
• Large range of levels of confidence perceived
  ability
• Avoidance of maths
• Returning to maths for a particular career (e.g.
  nursing)
• Enrolment in maths programmes in order to be able
  to support children
• Maths at home
• Very similar to what we saw in previous project
  money, cooking, time

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Main findings

• Engagement with school maths
• I know the answer, its very simple I cant see
  this explanation of how youve got to work it
  out how on earth does that work?
• New tricks for cheating
• embarrassed, confused, frustrated, left
  behind, lost control over what hes really
  learning
• Differences in home countries emphasis on
  solution (e.g. Somalia) v. method

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Main findings
Its very hard when youre faced with a child
thats literally just going, I do not understand
what you are talking about and it is the only
subject that we come to blows over and she will
get up, I cannot do this! and walk out and Im
like, well I cant teach you! It does put me
off because I sit down, I think, Oh I just cant
wait to get this over and done with Im sorry,
Ive got lines and numbers, theyre everywhere,
wheres my answer? Thats what puts me off
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Main findings

• What do parents think would help?
• More information from school
• Timetable for each days lessons
• Descriptions of what maths is being taught and
  how
• Teaching techniques that can be used at home
• Problems?
• Parents think they want to be teachers?
• Removes parents from position of 'expert' can
  mean that parents never catch up enough to help

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Moving forward

• Evidence to suggest that a school-centred
  approach has some shortcomings e.g. language of
  curriculum discourages parents fear of doing the
  wrong thing
• An alternative approach maths in not as
  activity (Stevens, 2013) could be useful for
  parents
• We have trialled workshops for parents in 4
  Bristol schools, building on our previous
  research and focus groups

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What we did

• 4 workshops
• Session 1
• Introduction to the project
• What is distinctive about our approach? Why do we
  think it is a good way to work?
• Think about some activities we do as families
  (that we don't usually think of as mathematical)
• What mathematical conversations could have
  happened?
• Homework?

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Next workshops

• Guided by parents
• Most sessions involved working on examples of
  activity that parents had brought with them
• Some used smartphones or notebooks, while others
  used verbal accounts
• Important to work in ways with which parents are
  comfortable and familiar

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Workshop Plan

• 3 sessions of approx. 1 hour with no more than
  2 weeks between sessions important to maintain
  momentum
• Recognition of parents as experts (think
  empowerment) let parents lead
• Lots of opportunities to share
• Activities
• Understandings of maths in activity
• Experience of maths talk with children

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Session 1

• Introduction to the workshops aim is to
  increase the amount of maths talk out-of-school
• Ask parents to talk in pairs/threes about
  activities they do as a family
• As whole group, ask for some examples. Then What
  maths might be involved? - let the parents do
  the work as much as possible!
• For the next session think about family
  activities where there wouldn't normally be any
  maths talk. Maybe bring in photos/notes to share
  with group.

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Session 2

• Ask parents to work in small groups on the
  activities that they have recorded or remembered
  since session 1.
• Use flipchart paper, post-it notes, marker pens
  etc. to note down any mathematical thinking that
  could be involved (maybe photograph for sharing)
• Share ideas with whole group. Discuss how these
  ideas can be used as conversation starters - I
  wonder...? - How did you...?

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Session 3

• Depends on previous 2 sessions be flexible!
• Have parents had conversations with children that
  they wouldn't have had before the workshops?
• Would it be helpful to explore the maths in more
  activities?
• Do parents feel that there is anything stopping
  them putting the workshop experience into
  practice?

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Keep in touch

• We would like to know about how this approach
  works in your schools
• We are designing a short evaluation questionnaire
  to help us and you understand parents responses
  to the workshops
• Please let us (Ben) know if and when you are
  planning to run sessions for parents

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Questions?
tim.jay_at_bristol.ac.uk jo.rose_at_bristol.ac.uk ben.s
immons_at_bristol.ac.uk http//www.everydaymaths.org
https//www.facebook.com/everydaymathsbristol_at_Eve
ryday_Maths
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References
Bloom, P, Wynn, K. (1997). Linguistic cues in
the acquisition of number words. Journal of Child
Language, 24(3), 511533. Chang, A., Sandhofer,
C. M., Brown, C. S. (2011). Gender biases in
early number exposure to preschool-aged
children. Journal of Language and Social
Psychology, 30(4), 440-450. Chiu, M. M., Xihua,
Z. (2008). Family and motivation effects on
mathematics achievement Analyses of students in
41 countries. Learning and Instruction,18(4),
321-336. Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C., Patall,
E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic
achievement? A synthesis of research,
19872003. Review of educational research, 76(1),
1-62. Crozier, G., Davies, J. (2007). Hard to
reach parents or hard to reach schools? A
discussion of homeschool relations, with
particular reference to Bangladeshi and Pakistani
parents. British Educational Research
Journal,33(3), 295-313. Fan, W., Williams, C.
M. (2010). The effects of parental involvement on
students academic self-efficacy, engagement and
intrinsic motivation. Educational
Psychology, 30(1), 53-74. Harris, A., Goodall,
J. (2008). Do parents know they matter? Engaging
all parents in learning. Educational
Research, 50(3), 277-289. Houtkoop, W., Jones,
S. (1999). Adult numeracy An international
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Learning Proceedings of the Fifth International
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Siraj-Blatchford, I., Taggart, B., Phan, M.,
Malin, A. (2008). Preschool influences on
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settings and primary schools Final report.
London DCSF (available at http//dera.ioe.ac.uk/8
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