City & Guilds is proud to be the lead supporter of National Numeracy Day 2022
Amanda Kelly shares optimistic thoughts about National Numeracy, addressing ‘maths anxiety’ and building a confident workforce.
03 May 2022
If you think it’s only geeks, academics and accountants who actively commemorate a day like National Numeracy Day, you’d be wrong. Why? Because we all practise numeracy, every day, often without even realising it.
Literacy and numeracy are vital skills we all need to develop, using them throughout life which is why we’re proud to be a lead supporter of National Numeracy Day, to help the UK feel confident with numbers. National Numeracy Day takes place on 18 May 2022, the 5th year of celebrating all things number related. The day is dedicated to acknowledging the importance of numbers for adults and children. It’s intended to inspire the UK’s population to improve their maths capabilities so that we can achieve greater personal accomplishments and build a brighter future, together.
Numeracy in the UK
According to research of the UK’s population, about 49% of our working-age population possesses primary school level numeracy skills. This may not seem like a crisis at face-value, but on the ground, the facts are that people with poor numeracy skills lose around £1,600 in earnings per year, and on a national level, poor numeracy costs the UK economy around £25 billion per year.
In his Autumn Budget statement in October 2021, Chancellor Rishi Sunak summarised the impact of the nation’s struggle with maths and English – which relates directly to vulnerability to debt, unemployment, poor health and increased stress, and susceptibility to fraud.
Sunak said: “We’re going to tackle a tragic fact: Millions of adults in England have numeracy skills lower than those expected of a nine-year-old… People with poor numeracy skills are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as their peers.”
Advocating numeracy confidence
The true beauty of the National Numeracy’s special day is that it has been designed to bring value to the everyday lives of normal people and to draw attention to the reality of “maths anxiety”, and to provide ways to relieve it. While allowing people across the UK to acknowledge their own fears around maths, the organisation creates safe spaces where people can build confidence and develop their numeracy skills. They achieve this through accessible projects and awareness campaigns, such as:
- maths literacy support for children
- family maths toolkits
- numeracy for work programmes
- staff training and workshops
- managing money programmes.
We really love the work that the passionate people at National Numeracy are doing, which is why City & Guilds is pleased to be part of National Numeracy Day!
To show our support, generate awareness, and drive better numeracy skills in the UK, we’re participating in the #BigNumberNatter a nationwide online conversation on social media all about numeracy and maths, joining in with celebrities, experts, professionals, and people just like you.
Throughout the month of May, the country will debate their love and loathing of maths, hopefully sharing stories about how numbers have saved the day – whether through career calculations and career advancement, helping the children with homework, acing a test, bartering at a market, or simply getting tax calculations right the first-time round. Also be sure not to miss the National Numeracy Challenge - an online tool that builds numeracy skills and confidence.
Become a #NationalNumeracyDay champion
We’d love for you to:
Sign up to become a champion, in exchange for your enthusiasm, if you sign up to become a champion, you’ll receive a pack of free, practical and engaging resources to help support your community to feel more positive about numbers. Read more about that on the dedicated webpage.
There is also a variety of activities and ways you can get involved, from: quizzes, recipe conversion baking challenges, to competitions with prizes and much more.
Let us know what you think about National Numeracy, and what you’re doing to improve your maths skills by joining the conversation on social media. Let us know what you’re up to by tagging: #NationalNumeracyDay and @cityandguilds.
Become a Champion
We’re excited to be supporting Numeracy and Literacy in the UK
We’re equally passionate about helping people develop their numeracy skills, as well as literacy.
We believe that building up these essential skills form the foundation of building more formidable workers, progressive careers, and a faster-expanding economy.
That’s why we’re excited about our Functional Skills programmes, which have been designed to support individuals to demonstrate their maths skills and to enable apprentices, to pass through the gateway to their end-point assessment (EPA) as well as providing an opportunity for employers wishing to upskill their workforce.
Find out more about Functional Skills