National Numeracy

National Numeracy is an independent charity (registered no. 1145669 in England and Wales) based in Lewes, UK, that promotes the importance of numeracy and "everyday maths".

The charity was founded in 2012; its chair is Belinda Vernon and vice chair John Griffith-Jones. Its current chief executive is Mike Ellicock.

The charity aims to challenge negative attitudes towards maths and promotes effective approaches to improving functional numeracy skills. Chris Humphries, former chair of National Numeracy and a former chief executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, said: "It is simply inexcusable for anyone to say: 'I can't do maths.' It is a peculiarly British disease which we aim to eradicate.” ^[1]

National Numeracy has been critical of the UK mathematics curriculum, claiming that it is flawed and requires radical improvement to ensure that everyone leaves compulsory education with essential numeracy skills.^[2]

National Numeracy is supported by a number of celebrities, including Rachel Riley, 2015 Great British Bake Off finalist Ian Cumming, financial journalist Martin Lewis of Money Saving Expert and Carol Vorderman. It is also supported by organisations, including Nationwide Building Society,^[3] the Rayne Foundation,^[4] Learn Direct,^[5] the John Lyon’s Charity and the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills.

History of National Numeracy

A 2010 report commissioned by Lord Claus Moser from New Philanthropy Capital recommended the creation of a national numeracy trust.^[6] The report, which focused on low levels of numeracy in the UK, showed how charities and funders can help people to be confidently numerate.^[7] These problems are a focus of National Numeracy's strategy. National Numeracy was legally registered as a charity in January 2012 with the press launch of the charity in March 2012.

Activity

On October 30, 2014, National Numeracy CEO Mike Ellicock was featured on an edition of ITV's Tonight documentary programme The Trouble With Numbers.^[8] Mike Ellicock spoke about cultural and attitudinal problems preventing people from succeeding in maths^[9]

During the 2014-15 FA Cup season, BBC Sport and BBC Learning worked with National Numeracy on Maths of the Day,^[10] a series of films shown across the BBC, as well as accompanying content on the BBC iWonder website, exploring maths in football. The films featured former footballer and commentator Robbie Savage and Countdown co-host Rachel Riley among others. In March 2015, there was also a Maths of the Day live event on BBC Radio 5 Live in which National Numeracy's Mike Ellicock and Rachel Riley talked about the importance of maths skills. It also included a feature from A Question of Sport in which team captains Phil Tufnell and Matt Dawson took part in a sport-related maths quiz with the audience, which was also made available on the BBC Radio 5 Live website.

In February 2015, National Numeracy made a complaint on Twitter about a L'Oreal Paris print advertising campaign, featuring Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren, which included the tagline "Age is just a number and maths was never my thing". L'Oreal responded to the complaint, tweeting in reply "Thanks for raising this, we hadn't meant it to be interpreted this way. We're changing it right away and you'll see new ads soon."^[11] Speaking to BBC News about the change, National Numeracy's Mike Ellicock said "Throwaway remarks about being 'no good at maths' are so easy to make and so damaging in the way they normalise negative attitudes. It's unusual for a company to recognise and remedy their error in the way that L'Oreal have, so we really appreciate their response."

Research

National Numeracy commissions and conducts research to inform its project work.

2012: According to the most recent Skills for Life survey, almost 78% of people in England have numeracy skills well below A*-C grade at GCSE.^[12]

2013: OECD found England to be 21 out of 24 countries in numeracy, ages 16–24. The large study also showed that 8.5 million adults in England and Northern Ireland have the numeracy levels of a 10-year-old.^[13]

2013: Employers report increasing difficulties in finding potential employees with the desired numeracy skills. In 2011, 24% reported applicants for new jobs had poor numeracy, in the past year it has risen to 26%. Employers also report numeracy skill gaps among their existing workforce.^[14]

2014: Report on the causes and consequences of poor English and maths skills, including 55% of homeless people found to lack basic math skills (D-G at GCSE).^[15]

2014: National Numeracy-commissioned research by Pro Bono Economics found following: over the course of a year, the cost of low levels of numeracy is estimated to be around £20.2 billion which is roughly 1.3 per cent of GDP to the total UK economy. This cost is distributed between individuals (£8.8 billion), employers (£3.2 billion) and government (£8.2 billion). This does not include costs of the higher risk of unemployment and underemployment to individuals and firms, and excludes wider costs to health, well-being, public services.^[16]

2015: National Numeracy-commissioned YouGov survey into British public attitudes to maths found that most people wanted to improve their numeracy to enable better understanding of their personal finances.^[17]

National Numeracy’s aims & projects

Aims

The National Stem Centre detailed the charity’s aims as the following:

• To work with organizations and individuals that have the ability to influence public opinion,
• To ensure via the media that there is a wide understanding of why numeracy is important, how it has been neglected and the serious impact of this neglect and how it is possible to remedy the situation.
• To lobby and work with ministers, politicians and officials to ensure that money is spent effectively on raising numeracy levels.
• To draw attention to anyone in the public eye who dismisses maths as unimportant or exhibits an “I can’t do maths” attitude.^[18]

Projects

• The National Numeracy Challenge Online is an interactive web-based tool that aims to improve numeracy skills among the adult population of the UK. The assessment tool asks participants to complete a series of everyday maths questions at various levels of difficulty, then revealing the level of maths skill they currently have and a score out of 100. Participants are then given a target for improvement and access to free resources to learn in the areas they need to work on, encouraging them to come back and take the assessment again to see how they have improved.^[19] In October 2015, the Challenge website was updated to include the ability to see which questions were answered incorrectly.^[20]
• The Numeracy Review is for employers who want to have in-depth insights into numeracy levels and attitudes to maths among their workforce. The process assesses the state of numeracy in a workplace, both in terms of maths ability and mindset among staff, using attitudinal surveys and the Challenge Online, then working with employers to address any areas that need improvement.^[21]
• Challenge Champions are numeracy advocates who are based within workplaces and other settings to support colleagues in improving their numeracy and using the Challenge Online.^[22]
• The Family Maths Toolkit is a project designed to engage parents and families with maths learning for children aged 13 and under, encouraging them to support their learning in the home with everyday maths activities provided by National Numeracy through schools. The project was piloted as the Parent Toolkit with 10 school across the UK in 2014-15 to find out how parental engagement with children's maths learning improved their attainment in school.^[23] The website was relaunched in September 2015 as the Family Maths Toolkit.^[24]
• Passport Maths is an early intervention programme for year 7 secondary school pupils who need extra support in mathematics, helping them to progress from level 3 maths to level 4 and attain better outcomes at GCSE.^[25]
• The Firm Foundations for All project explores using physical objects and approaches to develop understanding of the basics of numbers in adults with very low level numeracy. The project was piloted in community support settings, prisons and with the Prince's Trust.^[26]

External links

• National Numeracy Main Website
• National Numeracy, Registered Charity no. at the Charity Commission
• The National Numeracy Challenge
• National Numeracy Family Maths Toolkit

References