Blackpool teacher wins Let Teachers SHINE award for his idea to boost numeracy skills of town’s young people

Sam Slingsby says he is “absolutely delighted” to be awarded a grant from Let Teachers SHINE, an award scheme run by education charity SHINE that supports teachers with innovative ideas to help disadvantaged students succeed in core subjects.

Currently a teacher at the alternative provision school, Educational Diversity, Sam’s Numeracy Bridger project first received SHINE funding last year, to develop the project at his school but the new grant will allow him to scale up the concept to help students at other schools in Blackpool.

Numeracy Bridger is a series of 30-minute sessions, run one-to-one, or in small group, based on the fundamental numeracy skills that are required to master the GCSE curriculum, and it introduces real-life concepts such as house bills, tax and mortgages.

Sam said: “[Educational Diversityl] faces many challenges, including high pupil mobility and transience plus the significant difficulties sustained from the cost-of-living crisis, which is having a profound impact on local families.

“What we find, not just within my alternative provision but across the town, is that a lot of pupils are dropping in and out of the curriculum. This means that when pupils come to learn maths, they’ve got large gaps in their understanding, and they’re missing that prior knowledge of the core skills.

“Numeracy Bridger aims to give pupils the opportunity to both relearn those core concepts that underpin maths and develop numeracy skills that can be used and transferred into real-life situations.

“I want to continue the legacy of this intervention and share my resource so as many pupils as possible can have the opportunity to strengthen their fundamental numeracy skills, preparing them for GCSE maths and life beyond school.”

SHINE’s first grant enabled Sam to develop and test Numeracy Bridger, and train two teaching assistants to deliver it. The second, larger, grant will mean Sam can introduce Numeracy Bridger in two secondary schools and develop the real-life elements of the programme.

Sam added: “Students often say that they’re not going to be using trigonometry or abstract maths terms in the real world… what I try to explain to them is that numeracy is everywhere. It underpins every element of your life, from the clothes that you wear to the food that you buy. And at some point, these pupils are going to be deciding whether it’s better value to rent or to buy. They’re going to need to understand tax and mortgages and how credit works.

“SHINE has been a cornerstone of support, helping a small project develop and now helping to upscale it, so it’s as impactful and as accessible as possible, and so many more pupils can benefit from it.

Dr Helen Rafferty, Interim CEO of SHINE, said: “We are so pleased to be able to further support Sam in developing his idea to help disadvantaged children with maths, when they may otherwise have struggled.

“Maths is a core and essential skill which unlocks so many opportunities, and brilliant teachers like Sam know how best to support children to grow in confidence and succeed. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the impact of this work shared with other secondary schools.”