Abstract

Ireland recorded the second highest decline in results in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) between 2003 and 2009. Shortly after the PISA 2009 results were announced, a National Strategy for literacy and numeracy was launched by Ireland’s Government which set out national targets for numeracy. All schools were now required to plan for, and all teachers were required to teach numeracy across the curriculum. This was supposed to be customary in disadvantaged schools in Ireland since 2006. The researcher set about investigating the extent to which numeracy was taught in one post-primary disadvantaged school which was recommended for its good practice in the area of improving attainment in mathematics. To carry out this work, the researcher set about using the literature to develop a conceptual and an analytical framework to evaluate the teaching of numeracy for the Irish context. He carried out a single site case study in which he collected data from teacher and principal interviews, subject plans, whole-school planning documentation pertaining to numeracy, and lesson observations. He analysed these using the conceptual and analytical frameworks that were devised from the literature, and also by creating themes which arose from the statements from the original coding of the interviews. The researcher used Guskey’s (2002) theoretical framework to form sub-questions to help answer the main research question, and to build evidence at the first four levels. The evidence from the data collected was triangulated at each level in order to explore explanations for the phenomena discovered. This was the first study of its kind for the Irish context which aimed to see if Government policy in the area of numeracy was being implemented across the curriculum. The findings of this research suggested a need for policymakers to be consistent with the definitions used for numeracy and also to broaden out the targets iii from attainment in mathematics and mathematical literacy. The findings suggested a need for teachers to have a clear definition and understanding of the term numeracy, and for teachers to be fully informed of whole-school pedagogical practices in terms of numeracy. There is a need for sustained continuing professional development for teachers in terms of teaching numeracy across the curriculum which develops teachers’ identities as embedders of numeracy; works through teachers’ emotions and life experiences of school mathematics; upskills their mathematical content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and develops clear links between numeracy being taught in subject areas and the mathematics curriculum. The findings suggest a need to find the correct balance from school leadership between teacher autonomy in terms of pedagogy, and whole-school approaches in terms of developing and maintaining improvements in the teaching of numeracy across the curriculum.