Friday, March 12, 2010

Numeracy in the Spotlight with the Development of a New Content Theme from Excellence Gateway

Numeracy in the Spotlight with the Development of a New Content Theme from Excellence Gateway

Leading online service for those working in the post-16 learning and skills sector has developed a new content theme to support numeracy.

London, (PRWEB) February 10, 2010

To achieve the ambitious numeracy targets required by the Government, training, resources and support for educators are needed. The new content theme from Excellence Gateway provides background information, links to resources and ideas that will be useful for managers, organisations and educators.

Limitations in staff capacity, lack of numeracy training for teachers, lack of suitable resources and time for preparation challenge the effective delivery of numeracy programmes. However, numeracy can be delivered within a range of contexts and settings as well as in discrete and embedded provision. "Numeracy in the Spotlight" is of interest to all educators and CPD programme coordinators, including those working in the areas of family learning, financial education and health education, as the focus of the theme is on embedded delivery and delivery of numeracy within contexts.

"Numeracy in the Spotlight" includes topics on:
1. Background to numeracy provision and the targets;
2. Using the Excellence Gateway to support numeracy;
3. Assessment and learning;
4. Workforce development and Programmes to deliver numeracy.

Each topic offers useful learning resources (http://www. excellencegateway. org. uk/page. aspx? o=nav-resources) and ideas to help you attain your numeracy targets and deliver effective numeracy teaching. Each of the subsections within the theme provides a brief outline, information and links to resources that can provide you with further information.

For example, Topic 2, offers free resources to support teaching, including : Learning Mathematics in context - part of the Teaching and Learning programme resources, which provide ideas and information on teaching maths within subject and vocational areas; Numeracy learners - which provides a list of websites of useful numeracy resources for use with learners, and Teaching and Learning Mathematics - part of the Teaching and Learning programme, which provides a starting point for maths (numeracy) teachers to engage with other practitioners, providing access to teaching resources (http://www. excellencegateway. org. uk/), CPD, links to research and policy papers.

The Skills for Life (http://www. excellencegateway. org. uk/page. aspx? o=sfl) strategy 'Changing Lives' (2009) made a commitment to provide training and professional development to train and support fully trained teachers to meet the growth in demand for numeracy courses. Topic 4 provides information and resources to support this commitment as well as suggestions for embedding numeracy within family learning, financial education or health education.

Registering on the Excellence Gateway also allows you to use all tools and resources, including:
Over 75,000 pages of relevant and searchable content
Forums and collaborative workrooms
Excellence Gateway TV channel and news services
The Ofsted Good Practice Database

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