Confidence with numbers

Accessing the resources

SCARF schools - your access is automatic

Non-SCARF schools - please contact us to set up your free access to the assemblies and  guidance documents.

Assemblies

Designed to be used flexibly, these five assemblies provide a great resource for raising awareness about the issue of maths anxiety, and will help children to develop the confidence and skills needed to overcome their fears about maths.

Further guidance and support

For teachers who want to develop their understanding of maths anxiety in children – what causes it, how to prevent it and help children to overcome their fear of maths – we've brought together some additional guidance. This includes a list SCARF lessons that promote the confidence and mindset which can help children overcome maths anxiety. View the additional guidance and SCARF lessons.

Assembly 1: It's brilliant to NOT know

We explore how not knowing is a necessary part of learning.

Assembly 2: It all starts with 1– facing our fears

We show children that feeling anxious about maths is very common and encourage them to try and face their fears.

Assembly 3: From Zero to hero

We encourage children to believe in themselves and realise that we don’t have to be the best or the fastest to be able to do maths – we are all on our own journeys.

Assembly 4: We do maths

We look at how maths is part of our everyday lives and how we often do maths without even realising it.

Assembly 5: Maths and me

In this final assembly, we suggest ways that you can create your own show-and-share assembly by reflecting on the content from the other assemblies so that children can think about how their ideas about maths have been challenged.

The assemblies have been written as a sequential series. They can be delivered individually or in any order that works for your school.

They can also be taught as lessons to individual classes. Like all SCARF resources, they offer flexibility and can be tailored to your children's needs.

SCARF schools: your access is automatic. Just click on the links above to access the assemblies.

Non-SCARF schools: you can still access these resources, free of charge. Please complete our contact form – remember to ask for access to the Confidence with Numbers assemblies.

Acknowledgments

With thanks to TP ICAP for their funding to enable the Confidence with Numbers project.

Thanks also Dr Marcelo Staricoff, author, lecturer and former head teacher, whose book ‘The Joy of Not Knowing’ offers a practical guide to support children’s love of learning, and love of ‘not knowing’.

We would also like to thank Coram Beanstalk for their support, insights and creative input into this project.