1.  Numeracy encompasses the ability to use mathematical understanding and skills to solve problems and meet the demands
(National Literacy & Numeracy Strategy, 2011)
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Numeracy across the Curriculum
 Numeracy is NOT LIMITED to the ability to use numbers, to add, subtract, multiply and divide.
of day-to-day living in complex social settings.
 Numeracy involves being able to:
Think and communicate quantitatively
Make sense of data
Have a spatial awareness
Understand patterns and sequences
Recognise situations where mathematical reasoning can be applied to solve problems.
Numeracy should be treated as an ongoing disposition throughout lessons. Students should be given opportunities to probe information, ask pertinent
questions, explain their findings and justify their conclusions. This is consistent with good teaching and learning. In addition to this, certain topi cs give rise
to opportunities for subject teachers to reinforce common language, procedures, and concepts that students experience in mathematics lessons. It is our
intention that this booklet will provide examples of such opportunities to teachers of first year students.

2. 2
History
There are opportunities to acquire numeracy skills and concepts in History. Questioning, explanations, justifications and higher order thinking should be
used and explored where appropriate. Where numeracy arises in a natural , uncontrived manner the language, procedure, and concept should be dealt with
in a manner that is consistent to that of the mathematics department.
1. In the areas of number, money and measure
 Are students encouraged to estimate, calculate and check their answers?
 Are the approaches used in line with and of the same standard as those the students would use in mathematics lessons?
Recording time and dates, timelines, stratigraphy, carbon dating, dendrochronology, counting in Roman numerals, duration of training to
become an knight, craftsman, artist, dates of religious festivals, height/depth of castle walls, farming calendar, medieval manor size/acres,
population size – growth/decline, Pendulum Theory and the Law of Gravity, navigational equipment, transport, division of land,
unemployment rates, chronology
2. In data handling
Examples
 Where appropriate is the concept of bias discussed in lessons?
 Are students encouraged to choose appropriate graphical representations?
 Are students encouraged to retrieve, interpret and draw conclusions from the data presented?
 Can students identify and give examples of primary and secondary data?
Examples
Identifying archaeological sites using aerial photography, map reading, population growth and decline, migration, religious division, reading
tables and graphs, census, primary and secondary data, interpret and analyse data,

3. 3
3. In shape and space
 Are students encouraged to estimate, calculate and check various measurements?
 Are students encouraged to use appropriate units of measure?
 Can students identify the architectural features from key periods in history?
Burial monuments, shapes of houses in early Christian Ireland, architecture in ancient Rome and Renaissance, castles, layout of towns &
buildings, perspective & proportion in Renaissance paintings, carvel, map reading, site and grid map,
4. When using relationships and patterns
Examples
 Are students encouraged to make connections between cause and effect?
Examples
Job of archaeologist: pollen analysis, comparison between Medieval and Renaissance art, daily routine for Medieval monks, compare
Gothic and Romanesque architecture, identify trends in population movement and economic development, chronology,