Year 1 can feel like quite a change from Reception — for parents as well as children! Worksheets may start coming home, the language can sound more formal, and you might come across methods or maths terms that you don’t remember from your own school days.

It can be easy to think that helping means practising more sums or making sure your child gets the right answer. But there’s a lot more going on underneath. Your child is learning how numbers fit together, noticing patterns and connections, explaining their ideas and beginning to work things out in different ways.

And home can be a lovely place for that understanding to grow. A game, a question, a moment of wondering together or simply giving your child time to work something out can all help them see maths in a different way.