In this blog post, Professor Vic Simms writes about the completion of the “Play and Learning at Ulster and Sheffield” (PLUS) project, an intervention designed between researchers, educators and parents to test the relation between home mathematics activities and early mathematical development. The work was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and involved collaboration with Emma Blakey, Abbie Cahoon, Ben Hunt, Ella James-Brabham, Danielle Matthews and Emma Smith.

The “Play and Learning at Ulster and Sheffield” (PLUS) project

We know that children start school with varying levels of maths skills. These differences appear to persist throughout education, and poorer maths skills at school predicts lower educational attainment and lower incomes later in life. Our research aimed to understand one potential source of this inequality, the home maths environment.

The PLUS study had a number of components:

First, we brought together a number of data sets from research groups across the UK, amounting to 921 dyads data. Our analyses established that the frequency that parents engage with their children in home mathematics was positively associated with children’s maths skills. Interestingly, the frequency of engagement with home maths was not associated with socio-economic status. This tells us that families from different socio-economic backgrounds engage at similar rates with home maths- therefore, socio-economic differences in children’s early maths may not be due to the amount of exposure they have to these activities.

Second, we worked with early years educators and parents to develop cheap and engaging resources to be used in the home with 3-5 year-olds. By the end of this process, we produced 16 evidence informed resources to be used by families at home. These were fun games, such as number scavenger hunts, shopping games, and building activities.

Third, we recruited a small group of families to use these resources at home over a period of 8 weeks- at the end of this time the families gave us feedback. Families were very positive about the resources, but felt a little more explanation would be helpful. In response, we developed short videos to go along with each activity, explaining how the activity should be done.

Finally, we recruited 84 families to participate in a pilot study. These families engaged with the activities for 8 weeks and give us extremely positive feedback- we also had a very low drop-out rate from the study.

What did we learn?

The quality of interaction around home maths may be a more fruitful focus for intervention and research than simply the frequency that families engage with home maths. In addition, the production of acceptable and relevant resources for families takes time and effort! Working with families through this process increases chances of success. We also learnt that we need to work on recruitment and communication when aiming to engage with families from diverse backgrounds. We also have developed some key messages for researchers and policy makers, these are summarised in the final report.

What’s next?

Our next steps are to take the learning from the PLUS study and apply for funding to run a larger study with families from diverse backgrounds to help support early maths development. Watch this space!