‌Click on a link to go to the relevant section of the page

Rationale

After-school Mathematics Clubs hold the potential for increasing student opportunity to learn and enrich their mathematical experiences in ways that are free from curriculum and assessment driven teaching practices. As part of the work of the SANC project over the last five years we haved rolled mathematics clubs to a range of primary school learners. Since 2012 the project has run 26 clubs for over 284 grade 2 to 5 learners and have supported another 16 clubs outside the immediate project. 

The clubs are conceptualised as supportive inquiry communities where sense making, active mathematical engagement and participation, and mathematical confidence building are foregrounded. Individual, pair and small group interactions with mentors are the dominant practices with few whole class interactions.

These are some of the features of the clubs:

• Voluntary participation during out-of-school time
• More learner choice over the activities that they work on and engage with
• Curriculum as contextual guide for what is nationally expected of learners but individual learner numeracy levels guide content and activities
• Participation based, where participants are active and engaged
• Many interactions are learner led with few whole class-mentor interactions and many one-to-one interactions between mentors and learners.
• Assessment is formative and integrated and is used to guide individual learning experiences for the participants
• Negotiated sociomathematical norms (Cobb, 1996 and Hunter, 2008) which may differ from in-school time rules

Read more about the club rationale in the context of out-of-school time programmes: Maths clubs as examples of out-of-school time programmes

Club Foci

During the establishment of the clubs in 2012 and beyond, we have found that the clubs focus had been on:

• Remediation
• Extending and challenging beyond potential
• Individualised attention
• Strengthening mathematical dispositions, confidence and trajectories
• Establishing 2nd sites of learning using the "Pay-it-forward" concept and learner workbooks to take home

If you feel that your school would benefit from a club, then please have a look here: How to start a club at your school or download our Starting a Maths Club booklet for further information. 

Back to top

**NEW** Club Learning Programme Design

• See Debbie's paper on how the club learning programme is theoretically informed and designed: Stott - 2016 - Five years on learning programme design for primary after-school maths clubs in South Africa
• After school maths clubs as enabling spaces for both recovery and extension of mathematical proficiency in young learners

Current Clubs

With additional funding from the VESTAS Empowerment Fund, Debbie and other colleagues are currently running 3 clubs a week at 3 local schools, ranging from Grade 3 to 6. 

Maths clubs are also running once a week at 5 local after-care centres. These are faciliated by the centres' own staff but supported by the SANC project. 

Back to top

Last Modified: Mon, 05 Sep 2016 10:18:13 SAST