PLHS - Support for Learning

As we have recorded previously in the article “Improvisation maths at the restaurant, hairdresser and cinema…” role play has become an important part of our lessons in ELP maths.

Many of the topics we are covering with the children are designed to give them essential life skills that will stand them in good stead for their adult lives once Preston Lodge is but a (hopefully) pleasant, distant memory,

The areas of relevant everyday maths that we plan to concentrate on in particular include -

Money (coins, notes, denominations, change, prices, budget, banking)
Date (days, weeks, months, year, annual events, recurring occasions, advent, planning, reminders, timetables, diaries)
Time (telling the time, timetables, planning, alarms, 24 hour clock, durations, planning)

- as well as the fundamentals of addition, subtraction etc (of course!)

In dealing with the use of money, in particular, the use of role play has been invaluable. We have set up our own pretend shop, make believe bank - and even, at the children’s request, an Insurance Company selling house insurance policies (for all of £5 per annum believe it or not!).

Teaching and learning support staff have willingly played the roles of customers and employees of the ELP Bank, ELP Insurance Company or ELP store. Pupils similarly have acted out these roles accordingly.

An example of the kind of activity the children may take part in might be…

Child A plays a teller at ELP bank. Before they open their counter they must first sort their cash till. This involves ordering all like notes and like coins together and then putting them into the cash tray in order of ascending denomination.

Child B (or teacher or learning support worker) visits the bank and asks to withdraw a set amount of money from their account. Child A must then process this transaction, delivering the right money to the customer. We might then consider if there was more than one combination of notes (or coins) we could have handed over to the customer - if the child is at the stage that they can cope with this level of differentiation.

Another improvisation scene might be…

Child A needs to buy lunch from the school canteen. They have X pounds on their card. They have a choice of menu to select lunch from. (It would generally be a lunch menu that supports the Health Promoting Schools work - however we also usually include an option like sweets or doughnuts so that we can have a “healthy choices” discussion if the opportunity presents itself).

Child A must choose a lunch that they can afford. They might also be asked to work out how much money they would be left with on their card after buying lunch (this is an extension activity for the more advanced pupils in the group). They could physically represent this as “change” using the toy money from the cash box.

There are so many different variations on this theme of real life improvisation and it will be a very long time before we exhaust our acting opportunities…

The children really engage in these activities and gain crucial life skills as they unwittingly improve their maths at the same time. Much pleasure is gained from these lessons - with our favourite moment so far most definitely being when one of the children was playing the role of the bank teller. The pupil in question was asked by “Mrs Smith” if she could withdraw £5 from her bank account.

The young lady behind our ELP Bank Counter replied “I’ll go and ask my manager!”