West Lancashire College students shine in Numeracy Week celebrations

West Lancashire College proudly celebrated Numeracy Week from the 7th to the 11th of October 2024, a week dedicated to the success and development of students’ numeracy skills. The event engaged students in diverse, hands-on activities tailored to their individual courses, highlighting how maths plays a crucial role not only in academic achievement but also in preparing for future careers. Through engaging, course-specific tasks, students experienced how numeracy is interwoven with their studies and future work environments, fostering practical skills that extend beyond the classroom.

Early Years Education students explored numeracy within nursery rhymes, using these simple counting and rhythm-based activities to understand how fundamental maths concepts support children’s early learning. In Beauty Therapy, students demonstrated precision by filing nail tips into specific shapes, lengths, and angles—illustrating how numeracy aids in the aesthetics and balance essential in their profession. Public Services students embraced the outdoors to practice map reading and navigation, applying numerical skills in distance measurement, coordination, and grid referencing, thus enhancing their readiness for real-world fieldwork.

or Bricklaying students, the Brick Double-Domino effect offered an interactive approach to sequencing and spatial awareness, linking practical construction skills to mathematical principles. Social Sciences students delved into numeracy through analysing statistics, learning to interpret demographic data and evaluate vital statistics, which are crucial skills in social research and community assessment. Business T Level students researched companies with high enterprise rates, drawing links between maths and business intelligence, while Digital T Level students collaborated to decode hexadecimal code into English, gaining insight into the role of maths in digital technology.

Alex Huskisson, Adult Skills Manager at West Lancashire College, remarked on the importance of Numeracy Week: “Numeracy Week is a fantastic opportunity to focus on the value of maths skills, not only for academic success but also for the workplace. Our aim is to help students see how maths connects with real-world tasks they’ll encounter in their careers. Although our tutors consistently integrate these skills into their teaching, a week devoted to numeracy reinforces these connections, ensuring students leave with a practical, applied understanding of maths.”

Through Numeracy Week, West Lancashire College underscored the critical importance of maths as a transferable skill. Whether in vocational training or professional settings, the ability to link numeracy to real-world tasks is highly sought by employers. The college’s curriculum tutors excel in embedding these skills within daily lessons, and by highlighting them through dedicated activities, they strengthen students’ understanding and readiness for future demands. Numeracy Week effectively prepared students not only to succeed academically but to thrive in their chosen careers, providing them with a strong foundation in applied maths that will benefit them well beyond their time at college.