Online maths adds up

More than 50,000 parents and carers accessed the free ‘ORIGO at Home’ mathematics resource within two weeks of the service being launched, as they aimed to maintain learning for primary school children while the COVID-19 pandemic spread.

Developed from the ground up by ORIGO Education’s team of writers, content is continually being added, providing plenty of educational activities online.

Co-founder and CEO James Burnett says such significant uptake has been pleasing, but it is the true learning aspect which sets ORIGO at Home apart from other online activities.  

“We saw very early that there would be a great need in the community and decided to step up and do what we could to help mums and dads at home with children needing to continue their education,” he said. 

“This is not a series of childminding activities. Unlike most free content that focus solely on practice, ORIGO at Home is about instruction so children can learn the concepts and truly understand the mathematics before applying and then practising it. 

“The content we deliver on a daily and weekly basis remains true to our beliefs and the importance of a well-thought-out developmental sequence. In fact, we are about to release the overall long-term sequence so that parents and carers can see the bigger picture even though they will not see the activities until they are loaded incrementally to the site,” Burnett said. 

The ORIGO at Home activities complement year-level mathematical concepts and skills and can be accessed completely free via this link. 

ORIGO Education has core programs available for teachers online, where content can be shared digitally and via a digital classroom environment. The new online resource represents an opportunity for parents to familiarise themselves with the current mathematics curriculum and to remain connected to their child’s education — a key consideration in uncertain times.

“Our main focus is to support continued education that keeps students engaged in mathematics over the coming months,” Burnett said.

“Children need to touch base with key learnings on a daily basis to ensure progress isn’t lost. It may not be as much as they would normally undertake in their classroom, but it’s something to help them maintain concepts and skills during this downtime.

“We understand that many parents are concerned about the continued education of their children while at home, and may not feel well-equipped to support that learning.

“By developing content that engages both the student and their carer, we can facilitate continued understanding on both sides of the equation, which places everyone at an advantage upon returning to their classrooms in the future, whenever that may be,” he said. 

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/ake1150