ABSTRACT
We were introduced to IMPACT with a meeting of staff, parents and the IMPACT team, arranged for two occasions to give every family a greater chance to be represented. The team was very warm and approachable and sold the scheme well: maths would no longer hold any fears (the very name had put panic into the heart of many of the parents); maths was fun; maths should have a relevance to life, to a child’s experiences; children should be encouraged to look for and observe patterns, etc. Industry had found its young employees lacking in ‘relevant’ maths, and this problem ought to be examined; children learned best from an environment where home and school worked alongside (as in shared reading) and parents might learn something too.
