Numbers and the Number System

All Foundation Stage practitioners are familiar with teaching children to recognise and start to understand numbers, but something struck me during a training session I led last week. Despite the fact that Year 1 children study ‘Numbers and the Number System’ in their Number strand not one member of staff was able to explain what the term ‘number system’ meant. After some debate and confusion I went on to tell a fictitious story.

A long time ago, a female mathematician decided to get the help of an artist to design a new number system. In walked the most handsome Frenchman who set up his canvases and paints. His first design was all curvy and looked like this ‘0’. His second design was quite simple. He just painted a stick ‘1’. His third design was fascinating, something she had never seen before ‘2’. The morning seemed to fly by. The female mathematician gazed at his skill and elegance. At lunch time the Frenchman announced that it was his lunch time. The female mathematician waited eagerly for his return admiring her first completed designs 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. “ What would he produce next” she thought with an air of anticipation. The Frenchman must have had too many glasses of red wine because he did not return that afternoon or the next day or the next. The female mathematician had been quite distracted by the artist’s elegance and poise but realised that she must work with what she already had.

Every single number in our infinite number system is made up of a combination of those 10 shapes. How cool is that? If we are to really provide a good foundation in mathematics, surely practitioners should receive training on the significance of their role in equipping young children with the basic ‘tools of the trade’.

Barbara Carr is an independent numeracy consultant. She draws from a range of teaching experiences in primary, middle and secondary schools spanning 25 years. For more information please visit her website.