"My student partner is a bright kid and he just needed some stimulus and motivation to do numbers and not feel intimidated by them."

Volunteer

Preparation tips

Your first steps in the volunteering process involve contacting the school that you are going to visit and that's what we are going to look at in this section.

As well as speaking to the school and arranging your visit properly, finding time to prepare yourself fully will be very worthwhile. You are giving up your time to volunteer and it is important that you understand the needs of schools and manage to get as much out of the visit as possible. Take a little time, read through the information in this section and use the downloads.

First contact

  • Your volunteer coordinator will pass on details of the school and the staff member responsible for the Number Partners programme. To make initial contact, call first thing in the morning, at lunch time or after school. Teachers can be hard to get hold of - once you have been put in touch with the appropriate teacher, find out when they are free and how best to contact them. Take a note of times and contact details on the school contact checklist.
  • If your company has a large number of volunteers, it will probably make much better sense for the volunteer coordinator to contact the school on behalf of everyone.
  • Talk about Number Partners and yourself too. Let the teacher know what you do and why you have volunteered.
    Exercise: Using information from the website, write two or three bullet points about the programme and its benefits.
  • If you can, try to arrange a time to visit the school before your first session as a Number Partner. The more that you can find out before your visit, the easier your first day will be. It would make sense for the volunteer coordinator to arrange an induction for all volunteers at once to save numerous visits from different individuals.
  • Discuss any simple classroom rules they have in place. These will help you run the session and will make the students feel more comfortable.
  • Ask the teacher which resources are available and discuss which games they think would work well with particular students. You will run a 30 to 60 minute session at a set time each week. Each game lasts around 20 minutes, so you may manage to get through two or three.
  • You will need to have a police or criminal record check before you can be registered as a Number Partner. Information about the police or criminal record checks can be found at www.crbcheck.info/Default.aspx or http://www.crb.gov.uk/ or, if you are in Scotland, at http://www.disclosurescotland.co.uk/basic.htm. These can take up to six weeks so make sure you get this organised with plenty of time before your first visit.

Knowledge

  • Familiarise yourself with some of the number strategies used by students to solve tricky problems. Use the downloadable number strategies on this site as a guide. More information on maths in the curriculum can be found on the DCSF National Strategies site.
    More information on personal financial education in the curriculum can be found on the Personal Finance Education Group's website.
  • It is useful to know the resources before you get into school. Although you probably won't be able to lay your hands on the board games to practise, you can find descriptions of the games and details of how businesses and schools can order them through Education Interactive. Your volunteer coordinator should liaise with the school over the provision and selection of games. Your company might even offer to purchase suitable games. The games aren't complicated and the instructions are clear. Some games can be downloaded from the Resources section of this website. You can also use the explanation of Number Partners games in the Primary and Secondary games PDFs in the Resources section.
  • Practise how you will introduce yourself to the students - make it clear and understandable.
    Exercise: Using the About you template as a starting point, write down a brief introduction to yourself. Then check with someone young that it all makes sense.

After your visit

  • Catch up with the teacher on your way out - let them know how the session went and what the highlights and issues were, if any.
  • Keep records of what you covered - not just the games you played but whether there was anything your partner struggled with, or anything you struggled with! Use the NP Diary. This should be made available to your partner and their teacher. Try to be positive.