Lumley Infant and Nursery School
Great Lumley, UK

In their own words

Our Maths — No Problem! journey

It was five years ago that myself and Tracey Wilson — Head Teacher at Lumley — attended the MNP Annual Conference and were immediately inspired by Dr Yeap Ban Har. The approach came to life during his presentation. We invested in the scheme and have never looked back.

Lumley Infant & Nursery School has maintained ‘Outstanding’ status by Ofsted for 11 years. Our culture is firmly based around the continuous improvement and development of both our pupils and staff.

We endeavour to evolve and adapt in order to deliver the best education we can. It is our aim to create young learners who are resilient and persist in achieving their goals, regardless of ability or background.

Having met with Maxine Durnin at a previous MNP conference we discussed the natural progression of the MNP offering into the Early Years. The importance of embedding the CPA approach in the Early Years is critical to securing early number sense and we are really excited to trial the MNP Early Years materials as our next step in implementation. We are keen to embed MNP in the Early Years.

We are also working on a project, entitled ‘Creating a maths rich environment and identifying mathematics in children’s play’, with our local Maths Hub to further enhance our EYFS provision.

Maths — No Problem! in our school

Lumley Infant and Nursery School has implemented MNP textbooks and workbooks throughout our school for the last five years and our maths results continue to go from strength to strength. Our pupils really enjoy maths and benefit from practical experiences and the ability to use concrete objects to support them. The MNP content is engaging and reinforces that maths underpins everyday life and is far from simply memorising facts.

Teachers confidently use the online textbooks to create their interactive teaching screens where children are encouraged to manipulate objects on-screen and journal their methods. MNP is a winning formula to enthuse and embed basic skills whilst cultivating positive attitudes towards maths: ‘our future mathematicians in the making!’

Judi Hornigold, MNP Training Consultant delivered inset training in our school to all teaching staff who have also attended training in Manchester and Newcastle. The Head Teacher and I have attended the annual MNP Conferences and the headlines from this event are always disseminated to staff. Several schools, including a large Academy Trust, have visited our school to watch MNP and the CPA approach in action and ‘try before they buy’. We received very positive feedback and several of the schools have invested and have expressed a wish for staff to visit us again. I am keen to share best practises and showcase the CPA approach; it works!

As an Outstanding School we aspire to continually evolve and drive improvement and MNP is closely aligned to our practical approach to learning in so many ways.