Numeracy Audit Overview: Purpose:

A Numeracy Audit is a process where staff collects information about numeracy practices and attitudes in the school to help plan improvement strategies (McInerny, 1999). A whole school action plan to improve numeracy needs to establish baseline data upon which to set goals which drive the action plan implementation.

Goals:

The school should be able to make intelligent and informed decisions about the extent to which numeracy requires action and how that action should be directed. Students will have improved opportunities to develop numeracy as teachers extend their practice of numeracy teaching strategies. Teachers can become better informed about numeracy demands across the curriculum. Teachers will hone their skills in recognising numeracy demands through both their classroom and their curriculum with a commensurate student improvement in relation to numeracy performance.

Vital Questions of the Numeracy Audit:

To what extent do teachers feel confident in accessing opportunities to recognise student numerate behaviour and develop numerate behaviour? Across the staff is there a common conception of numeracy and what is it? To what extent do curriculum materials refer to numeracy? To what extent is numeracy embedded in teachers planning? Do teachers feel that students are provided with sufficient opportunity to develop advances in numerate behaviour? Where practices exist to develop cross-curricular numeracy, are they appropriate, should some have an increased focus, or a decreased focus? To what extent is professional development required to assist in developing teachers skills in developing numeracy across the curriculum? To what extent are other stakeholders, such as parents, seen to have a role and how can their assistance be harnessed?

Vital parts of the Numeracy Audit:

Aside from standardised testing, the audit process should include the following steps:

Staff to be interviewed with a set question script (a selection of questions is appended) Teachers curriculum planning to be examined for evidence of numeracy-focused strategies. Classroom practice observations with a focus on looking for evidence of numeracyfocused strategies. Students work from these observed classes to be examined for evidence of competent numeracy practice. Conclusions from these examinations to form the basis of a skills matrix to identify gaps in numeracy practice. Follow-up meetings to discuss findings from the Audits investigations and agree on areas that require improvement. These areas to become the focus of the Action Plan.

The Numeracy Audit Cycle:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Collect and collate school background information Identify staff and student perceptions of numeracy Examine curriculum and school documents for references to numeracy practice Examine teachers own documents for references to numeracy practice Collect examples of actual classroom numeracy practice Identify and discuss issues arising from collected information Integrate findings from Audit into Whole School Numeracy Plan.

Numeracy Audit appendix:

Document 1 Parent Questionnaire:

1. To what extent does my child receive an appropriate amount of numeracy related homework?

2. To what extent do I find it easy to help my child with numeracy related homework?

3. To what extent does my child complete numeracy related homework without help?

4. In what ways do you do you support your child with numeracy related activities?

5. How do think the school could improve its teaching of numeracy across all curriculum areas?

Numeracy Audit appendix:

Document 2 Numeracy problem solving and investigation:

1. Supply an example of an investigative or problem solving activity you have used in your class:

2. What equipment and resources do you find useful in teaching problem solving?

3. How often do students engage in problem-solving in your class?

4. Which of the appended problem solving strategies do you actively instruct your class? A. B. C. D. E. F. G. Work backwards Predict and Check Make a table Represent problem in graphical form Look for patterns Make the problem simpler Look for patterns