Maths is Everywhere Erasmus Project

Project Title

Maths is Everywhere

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

Four state-maintained mainstream schools and one state special school from different European countries participated in this project. All schools were situated in socially disadvantaged and economically deprived areas and thus it was very important for the students in these schools to participate in this kind of project; mainly to experience the opportunities afforded and to become more open-minded, self-confident and tolerant as well as improving their aptitude and confidence in mathematics, which is vital to enhancing employment opportunities. All schools have students with learning difficulties and so this combination of partners allowed the UK specialist school to support the four mainstream schools to develop new skills, attitudes and approaches to working with SEN students in their individual schools.

The partners were already involved in an e-twinning project to gain first-hand information about schools, customs and cultures in other countries which was student driven through exchanges of questions and answer sessions. This was made possible using a shared wed-based platform where the students uploaded various PowerPoints, documents, images and videos to share information and led the discussions leaving the teachers to facilitate the process rather than delivering textbook information. After further researching and considering students’ comments and suggested activities on the messaging forums it was decided to develop the project further with a new theme of ‘Mathematics’. Mainstream students had expressed their concerns about getting the best grades or made comments that they didn’t see the purpose of mathematics and so it was decided that all participant institutions would encourage everyone to realise the importance of learning mathematics; to recognise it is used in so many other areas including ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sciences, engineering, technological fields, the arts, music, computing and communications. Furthermore, learning mathematics would support teaching students how to think logically, to problem solve, improve their organizational skills and make a step towards developing creativity and group work competences.

Through different activities, interactions and exchanges we intended to motivate our students/pupils to understand how mathematics is used in everyday life in their countries and other countries in Europe. In this way they would also learn to accept customs, culture and heritage and to see that we are the same even in our differences. They would also be motivated to learn foreign languages for effective communication. Students would develop the activities within their school subjects during regular classes and also in some cases through extra-curricular activities. The plan to involve teachers across the curriculum helped to reinforce mathematics being involved in many walks of life. The project became an integral part of all the schools’ curricula not only for the two years of the project, but it has continued into future academic years.

The main activities undertaken included associating mathematics with our everyday environment, reproducing famous landmarks using shape, scaling and measure; fundraising which supported developing money management skills but also raised awareness of social responsibility through volunteering and raising money for charities or for groups of people less fortunate. Students considered mathematics in art, timetables, music, travel, sport and healthy lifestyles with particular regard to calorie counting. Other activities included creating and solving puzzles, finding logical solutions to problems, conducting several surveys and presenting the resulting data accordingly.

After completing all the activities in the project it became apparent to the more able students that it was very necessary to learn mathematics for analytical, technological, scientific, economic uses and was invaluable for future employment opportunities. The SEN students began to recognise its abundant use in daily life and displayed an increased interest and enthusiasm for numeracy lessons, expecting them to be fun. Academic progress and attitude to mathematics improved in all schools as staff measured this through national exam results and summative assessments and could assess their students’ attitudes towards learning Mathematics from before and after questionnaires.

Articles pertaining to the partnership were published in local/regional newspapers and on local/regional websites. A collective project website/blog plus was created to put all the latest news, results and project progress information on the Internet. (http://erasmusmaths.blogspot.co.uk/) and also all activities and results were displayed on dedicated school social media pages and websites as well as being displayed on the e-twinning platform Twin space – https://twinspace.etwinning.net/872/home

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 129975 Eur

Project Coordinator

Pendle Community High School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• SCUOLA MEDIA STATALE MARIO PLUCHINOTTA
• SCOALA GIMNAZIALA ,, SFANTA VINERI”
• Zespol Szkol w Rudkach
• Balikesir Karesi Ortaokulu