ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the challenges of developing a whole-school approach to numeracy in primary and secondary schools. It revisits the idea of numeracy across the curriculum and reviews Australian research on school leadership in relation to numeracy, to identify challenges in taking a coordinated cross-curricular approach. It offers practical strategies for getting started with engaging a whole-school community in numeracy planning, teaching and assessment. The Australian Curriculum provides some assistance in identifying the numeracy demands of different learning areas, but it has been left to individual schools to work out how to embed numeracy across the curriculum as a general capability. The chapter aims to present a professional development model that schools could use with small groups of teachers to begin raising awareness of numeracy across the curriculum. The professional development model uses cycles of action research interspersed with one- or two-day workshops, preferably with input from an external expert or team.
