Numeracy is one of the core subjects at Prior's Court, as it is all over the UK, but young people learn about numbers in a slightly different way here.

Numeracy at Prior's Court focuses on four main components:

• Number,
• Measurement,
• Time,
• Money

These skills are taught in interactive ways including visual aids, hands-on activities, one-to-one correspondence, stories, and rhymes. The activities can range from board games, to matching number cards with corresponding pictures, sensory activities, puzzles, sorting objects by number or colour, and counting objects. Every session incorporates these four areas and at the end numeracy stories or books are read. 

Natasha Els, our Numeracy Learning Specialist, said: 

The focus is on developing functional skills that can be generalised and applied to a variety of environments and settings.

These numeracy skills based on the focus areas provide a foundation for young people to progress from one level to the next, developing their skills for everyday life. The video to the right shows Helena, a young person at Prior's Court, working on her number recognition. She can count how many objects she sees on the card and match them with the correct number on the board. This lesson was taught on a 1:1 basis with Natasha, who has tailored these lessons specifically to suit Helena's learning style. The next step for Helena will be learning the concept of 'more' and 'less' and developing her skills in addition and subtraction.