"From the Number Partners sessions I have learnt to be more confident in my maths. I know it's helping me to learn more."

Student

Notes for school coordinators

First steps

All schools taking part in Number Partners must appoint a school coordinator to take responsibility for the way it runs at school. As a school coordinator, you will need to:

  • Register your school on this site to become a member of Number Partners and receive updates and useful information.
  • Understand what your school hopes to achieve by establishing a relationship with a local business or employer.
  • Agree your school's commitment with the head and teaching staff in order to release students from their timetabled lessons or over lunchtime.
  • Consider the minimum and maximum numbers of volunteers that you will need for the programme to be viable.
  • Find a local employer able to provide volunteer Number Partners.
  • Find a suitable space and time for Number Partners sessions to take place each week.
  • With assistance from other staff, choose suitable students to take part in the programme.
  • Have an initial meeting with your business partner's volunteer coordinator.
  • Meet and brief the volunteers before their first session with students; this may also be an induction to your school.
  • Check that all volunteers have successfully completed their Number Partners training and assessment and police or criminal record checks by asking to see a copy of their Number Partners certificates and police disclosure or CRB documentation.
  • Liaise with volunteers as often as possible to keep up to date with progress, and to advise on students' performance and behaviour; you may want the volunteers to write in the Number Partner learning diaries.
  • Stay in touch with the volunteer coordinator on a regular basis to suggest and hear ways of improving or developing Number Partners sessions, to discuss holiday dates in advance etc.
  • If requested by the Number Partner Consortium, help evaluate the programme at the end of each year and, perhaps, undertake evaluation as part of your own approach to ensure that objectives are being met
  • Discuss any evaluation with the volunteer coordinator in order to identify ways of developing the programme in the following year.

Download the Coordinators Handbook.

Other notes

Finding an employer:

Your school may well have a business link in place. If that's the case, why not find out if that organisation would like to offer volunteer Number Partners? You could also talk to the member of staff responsible for work related learning. There are bound to be lots of local companies and organisations who might be interested in establishing a partnership of this kind with your school. Consult your headteacher, senior management team, governors and parents who might be able to make suggestions and approach suitable organisations in the area.

If you're not successful in finding a partner yourselves, a local business link organisation, such as many EBP (Education Business Partnership) members of the Institute of Education Business Excellence, might be able to help match up your school with an employer in the area. There is also useful information on the Teacher's guide to employer engagement website.

Selecting students:

Schools are responsible for choosing the students who will benefit most from time with a Number Partner. Choose two or three students to work in a group with each Number Partner for at least one term. These might be students who:

  • are not confident at contributing in class
  • have difficulty working with others, especially at taking turns
  • require additional time and support to develop their numeracy skills
  • are particularly confident in maths and need time to stretch their knowledge and understanding.

You might wish to inform parents and carers that their children are working with a Number Partner.

Selecting games:

Number Partners sessions revolve around number games.  It's important that the school coordinator and the volunteer coordinator agree on the most appropriate games to meet students' needs. There are downloadable versions of tried and tested Number Partners games on this website, as well as details of where these can be purchased if you would like to have games boxes in your school. Your business partner may be willing to purchase games for the school or share the cost. Please visit our resources section for more information.

A typical Number Partners session

"I usually arrive at the school five or ten minutes before my session starts, so I can have a quick chat with the teacher and catch up on what's been going on with my kids. Pamela and Abdul collect me from the main corridor and we go along to the library with the other Number Partners. It usually takes a while to get them going, so we have a chat about what they've been doing in class in the past week. Then, we choose a game which we play together for about 20 minutes. I try to get them to tell me how they arrive at their answers, and they're sometimes not very confident, but now that I've been working with them for three months, they're getting better. At the end of the session, we fill in the diaries which I leave for their teacher, before heading back to the office." A current volunteer.