Become a Partner School

Our initial research with teachers and with educational organisations showed a strong consensus that early intervention was most effective. This has been borne out by continuing feedback from our partner schools.

An additional benefit from specialising in one age group is that we can train all our volunteers in the same way, and they and we can all learn from each other to improve how we deliver support.

We charge a fee of £60 per child for a full year. However, if the school finds a volunteer, we charge only £30 per child. Thus, if a school has three volunteers working with a total of nine children, its annual fee will be between £270 and £540.

As a comparison, the Education Endowment Foundation rates a fee of £80 per child for a year as a ‘very low cost’ intervention.

We deliver our intervention on a ‘best efforts’ basis.  Our fee structure means that schools will not pay for volunteer sessions they do not receive.

Our fee is budgeted to cover about a quarter of our costs, with the rest coming from sponsors and donations.

We are exploring funding opportunities which might support all or part of the fees for a small number of schools in financial difficulties.

We originally designed our intervention based on discussions with experienced teachers, incorporating ideas from schemes where volunteers support children with reading.

We also consulted with academics specialising in maths education in primary schools.

We continue to develop our intervention, building on feedback from our In-School Volunteers, our Mentors (all with experience as primary school teachers), and our partner schools.

We ask teachers to select children who are behind in maths and who they think can benefit from dedicated help.

Our volunteers support children with a wide range of abilities, but they cannot replace the work of a Special Educational Needs professional; we therefore ask schools not to select children needing such professional help.

At the end of each school year, we ask the class teacher of each child we work with to evaluate the child’s progress over the year compared to the rest of the class on both confidence and skills. Teachers have consistently rated a very high percentage of children as showing an observable improvement in both categories.

For example, in 2022-23, 86% of children showed a measurable increase in confidence with maths, 79% were more engaged in classroom lessons, and 83% showed a measurable catch-up in attainment with the rest of the class. The detailed results are shown in our Annual Reports.

Exact times depend on the school and on the volunteer, but will be during the school day. As agreed with the school, different volunteers may come to the school on different days or times. Schools generally ask volunteers to commit to the same time each week.

Most volunteers will only be available for a specific slot during the week so, if schools are able to be flexible on timing, this may make it easier to supply volunteers.

The actual location will depend on the particular school but will be outside the classroom.  It might be the library, the dining room, or a corridor area. Because of Covid, we require the school to ensure that the location is well ventilated.

We agree this with each school, depending on its requirements. A single-form-entry school might want only two volunteers, but a larger school would usually have at least three volunteers. We introduce the volunteers to each other so that they can share experiences and ideas and cooperate in their approach to the school.

Sessions are 25 to 30 minutes, to fit the school timetable – this includes collecting the child from the classroom and taking them back after the session.

In the first few sessions of the year, the volunteer will get to know the child through chatting, playing games, and doing simple maths exercises.  This should show the volunteer which maths skills the child needs to develop and the best way to give the child support in this. The volunteer will tailor the sessions around the needs of the child.

Sessions typically involve discussions and mathematical games as well as more conventional ‘classroom’ exercises. Often the volunteer will work with concrete objects with the child, to help reinforce basic concepts and skills.

On the request of the teacher, the volunteer may sometimes work through specific examples or activities relating to current classroom teaching. However, this should not replace the overall focus of our programme on ensuring that the child develops a sound grasp of foundational maths skills missing at the start of the year.

An example of using a game in place of ‘just doing sums’ would be as follows. The volunteer mixes 18 playing cards made up of two suits of one to nine – and then places them face down. The first player turns over a pair of cards. The aim is to find pairs adding to ten. If a pair does add to ten, the player keeps the pair and has another go. If the pair does not add to ten, the player replaces the cards face down – and both players try to remember the cards. Then the second player has a go, and so on.  The winner is the player with the most pairs at the end.

The game gives the child the opportunity to reinforce ‘number bonds’ for ten, but equally importantly it gives a framework for talking through strategies for adding and subtracting – and for having fun.

We aim to establish effective relationships with each school, both at a personal level with teachers and other staff and through structured communication around administrative processes.

We ask that the school provides a single teaching ‘coordinator’, typically the Head of Maths or a member of the Senior Leadership Team. This allows our volunteers to liaise about issues without having to interrupt classroom teachers during the teaching day.  We also request a single contact for administration.

Number Champions will also provide a single contact for administration and will assign one of our Mentors to support our volunteers on educational issues and to be available to the school coordinator.

A key relationship is between the teacher and the volunteer. We appreciate that teachers generally cannot be interrupted during the school day, so we ask the school to put the teacher and the volunteer in email contact. We ask our volunteers to give periodic updates to the teacher on the child’s progress, and we encourage teachers to give appropriate feedback and direction so that the volunteer can optimise the intervention for the good of the child.

We have developed our standard partnership agreement with pro-bono lawyers. It lays out what Number Champions and its volunteers will do and what we expect from the school. It covers specific requirements in the areas of safeguarding, data protection, and insurance. It also defines our fee structure in detail, including a rebate to be paid to the school if our volunteers do not deliver a minimum number of sessions with children.

As well as working directly with individual schools, in some cases we partner with Multi-Academy Trusts which introduce us to their schools.  We also partner with other charities, such as West London Zone where our volunteers run our intervention as part of WLZ’s overall programme in a school.