By JESSE GRAHAM
HEALESVILLE Primary School students have kicked off a whole-school program to increase numeracy skills, after receiving $4000 worth of equipment from the Rotary Club of Healesville last week.
Rotary representatives Graeme Chester, Barbara Dickson and president Lesley Plumpton visited the school on Monday 15 February for the handing over of $4150 worth of numeracy equipment for students.
Principal Cameron Heath said the donation came after the school planned a new numeracy program last year, but realised it was short on materials for children to use.
“We realised that we were missing the vital link, which was the concrete materials for kids to use,” he said.
Mr Chester said that Rotary heard the school was fund-raising for the equipment, and decided to purchase all of it.
“When we heard about it, we were able to come and say, ‘We’ll get it, have it for the start of the year and get the whole lot’, so the school can have the whole program going through all the levels of the school, starting from this term,” he said.
The equipment, which was opened by students later that day, focuses on weight, measurement, volume, time, probability and counting, with more complex equipment for different classes at the school.
When the Mail visited one of the classrooms, students were split up and using the equipment for their classwork – two students, Emily and Honey, were using scales to weigh their lunchboxes, while others were measuring their outstretched arms, or timing push-ups.
Mr Heath said this enabled teachers to use the simpler materials for students who were struggling, to get them up to speed, as well as using more complex materials for those who were ahead of their class.
“It’s going to give them the real hands-on, concrete, visual way to see what they’re doing, rather than an abstract concept out there that the teacher’s trying to teach them,” he said.
He said the school would keep track of children’s progress with the numeracy program, to measure the success of the new materials.
