We share National Numeracy’s belief that every child can develop the numeracy skills they'll need, both at school and throughout their lives, boosting their education, skills, and aspirations. We believe that by helping people feel more confident about everyday maths, we can help them to participate more in society and secure a brighter financial future.
Our Group's Purpose is to put people on a path to a better everyday life. This Purpose runs through all areas of our business and Is right at the core of our group-wide Social Impact Programme.
One strand of our Social Impact Programme is education. This helps us to support UN Sustainable Development Goal number 8 - Quality Education which seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. And this is where our long relationship with National Numeracy comes in.
Our recent work with National Numeracy
In 2021, our funding enabled National Numeracy to develop new resources to include in the Family Maths Toolkit it offers to parents, families, and children aged 13 and under to help them enjoy everyday maths together and to improve their confidence with numeracy. By contributing to the further development of these resources we have been able to help the charity to support around 11,000 children, parents, and teachers from 19 schools in areas of need in England and Scotland to develop the numeracy skills they will need, both at schools and throughout their lives. These resources also support the post-pandemic catch-up agenda .
The new resources our funding contributed to are curriculum-linked maths activities for children to complete with their families or the other adults who support them. They help people to explore financial capability and how they can apply their knowledge, skills, and attitude towards making good money management decisions.
All this is done through open-ended activities for children, with information sheets provided for adults which help them to develop their own and their children’s confidence with numbers.
Supporting National Numeracy day and Children's Relationships with Numbers
2022 will be the fifth year we've supported National Numeracy day, which focuses on raising awareness of the importance of everyday maths, sharing new maths resources for children, families, and carers, and encouraging people to take the first steps to build confidence in everyday maths. This year, National Numeracy is running a 'Big Number Natter' campaign, with events, celebrities, and resources all geared around encouraging people to talk about numbers and how we use them in our everyday lives.
One of the most important things adults can do to support children’s numeracy is to help them feel good about maths, but we need to grow our confidence to be able to do this. That's why National Numeracy has developed a quick everyday maths check, so you can see where you could improve your skills, to be able to help yourself or help others.
Once you've taken the challenge, the accompanying hub is full of useful information, including what we can do as adults to support children and help them feel good about everyday maths.
For example, quick quizzes help parents and carers to understand how saying to a child "I was never any good at maths at school and I turned out OK!" can pass on an unhelpful message, suggesting that maths isn't important outside school can make them less likely to want to learn about it. The resources also help them to understand that maths anxiety is common for lots of people and lots of reasons, but the most useful thing we can do to support children with their maths is to help them to feel positive about it.
Take the challenge, and learn something new!
Completely Committed
To further underline our commitment to playing a role in improving skills such as numeracy and literacy, Malcolm Le May, our Group CEO joined the National Numeracy Leadership Council in September 2021.
The Council includes representatives from Amazon, Bloomberg, and Experian, and aims to grow the network of organisations and individuals actively addressing the issue of poor numeracy in the UK.
The Council will also support people to improve and use their numeracy skills by creating positive attitudes toward numbers and maths, supporting financial wellbeing, increasing access to sustainable careers, and, ultimately, stimulating productivity across the entire economy.
"Addressing poor numeracy is a cause that is of particular interest to me; it is both extremely relevant and aligned to PFG’s Purpose. That’s why I’m pleased to be part of the National Numeracy Leadership Council and excited to see where this network, combined with the UK Government’s 2021 budget commitments, will take us in the future"
Malcolm Le May, Chief Executive Officer, PFG