E4L releases videos to improve mathematics education in the early years

Evidence for Learning (E4L) has released two new videos from early childhood settings designed to compliment its recently released Guidance Report, Improving mathematics in the early years with children aged 3-7 years.

The Guidance Report summarises the best available evidence to make clear, actionable recommendations for mathematics and educational leaders (sometimes referred to as ​‘middle leaders’), senior leaders such as school leaders and centre directors, and other staff with responsibility for leading improvement in mathematics in early learning and primary school settings. Educators will also find this guidance useful as a resource to aid their day-to-day practice.

Along with the Guidance Report, the Early Childhood Education Toolkit provides evidence summaries for early numeracy approaches and related approaches such as play-based learning and communication and language approaches.

The videos show educators demonstrating examples of the recommendations given in the report in their settings, and feature practice at Orchard Early Centre and Goodstart Early Learning.

In the first video, Si Ning Koh (Orchard Early Centre) explains how she has introduced Numicon manipulatives with the children in her setting and how they are used to explore mathematical concepts. In the second video, Juanita Milne (Goodstart Early Learning) describes how meal time routines can provide opportunities for children to explore small numbers, counting, addition and subtraction.

Services are invited to share their own examples that are aligned with the recommendations in the Guidance Report by emailing E4L with a short description of their example/s.