Parents and grandparents queued up to join the National Numeracy Challenge at Liverpool Central Library as part of a city wide maths campaign.
In an event for families to enjoy maths together, parents got busy practising their everyday maths while children had a go with maths games and counting with number lines. Adults who joined the National Numeracy Challenge were able to do so over a cup of tea and a chat with representatives from Liverpool Adult Learning Service, Merseytravel, Mayoral lead for primary education Cllr Lana Orr and Assistant Mayor, Cllr Nick Small.
Transforming the central city library into a space for numeracy helped to challenge perceptions about spaces and ways to enjoy maths, a move encouraged by the library’s Development Manager, Denise Jones. She is keen to show that the library is more than just a place traditionally associated with reading.
She said: “It’s somewhere where parents and children can come to enjoy learning together in a way that’s very different from school”.
Tutors from Liverpool Adult Learning Service helped to raise interest in the day, working with adults and children to support them through the maths activities. They are now planning continued work with the National Numeracy Challenge in their learning centres.
Nick Small, Assistant Mayor of Liverpool and Cabinet Member for Education, Employment & Skills, praised the National Numeracy Challenge for helping to show the relevance of numeracy in everyday life.
He said: “It’s about recipes, it’s about units, it’s about things that you actually need. We all need maths and we all use it in real life.”
The day was organised by the team behind Liverpool Counts, a city-wide campaign which aims to raise standards in mathematics and numeracy throughout Liverpool.
