For parents and teachers it can be really difficult to know what resources really work. PLYT has not only has proven research showing the benefits to numeracy, but it’s also been endorsed by leading maths consultants and National Numeracy as a great resource for both at home and in school. Schools can cover a large amount of the curriculum (see how) in each year group with just one game.
The aim of PLYT competitions are to encourage teachers, parents and children to enjoy an evening playing PLYT – combining fun and education – and we hope it could become a regular event for the school.
The competition is all about having a go and not being afraid to get it wrong – especially for parents and teachers who can be great role models to the children. (see the research)
Competition Format suggestions:
- The event could run across the whole school or in year groups – e.g. we’ve seen some great competitions featuring year 5 & 6 together
- Organise your competition as you see fit, but we’ve suggested 2 options that can be played as one off games or a knockout & final format
- Parents v children v teachers – a great way for children to really push themselves and show off their skills as they try to beat the adults.
- Split the players so that each table consists of both children and parents/teachers from the start – a table can take 6 players around the board – and you will see how keen the children are to win and beat the adults and how they form alliances to help them do it.
- Parent & child teams – a great way for children and parents to work together to try to win the game.
- The only difference this option brings is that one half of the team will decide how many dice their partner will throw for a bonus (i.e. the child chooses how many the parent will throw and vice-versa – how much trust do they have in each other?)
- The number of participants can vary, but assuming the school has acquired a case of 6 games they can feature up to 36 players or teams (6 tables with 6 competitors or teams on each)
- 6 game winners would move on to the Final and all other players would be re-shuffled into 5 other games to ensure that everyone gets 2 games
- Game Rules (feel free to amend as you see fit)
- Standards are set dependent upon age – e.g. yr 1&2 = 3 dice addition, yr 3&4= 2 dice multiplication, yr 5&6= 3 dice multiplication, adults= 4 dice multiplication
- Players will move by the Master dice plus a bonus of 4 spaces for every dice thrown above their Standard.
- Players can opt to start from square 1 and race to the Winner square or alternatively if time is limited they could start further along the board (e.g. sq 40) and/or include a time limit which implies the player furthest ahead when the time finishes wins
- A few photo’s on your school website are always good to capture the fun – the children especially enjoy seeing themselves – but if you want to show some photos on our competition pages, feel free to get in touch
Benefit of the competitions
- Use regular PLYT competitions as fundraisers for the school
- Similar to a Quiz night but without the need for anyone to write the questions and something that the whole family can take part in rather than just the parents
- How you choose to fundraise is up to you but here are a few ideas: sell entry tickets, sell food & drinks, local sponsor to donate a prize and trophy
- The opportunity for parents and children to genuinely compete in an educational game without one group having to “dumb down” or the parents always winning will be unique – and given our research something the children would really enjoy
- “If parents engage with their children’s education, the attainment of the child will increase by 15% no matter what the social background of the family. – Professor
Charles Desforges. A PLYT competition is a great way to encourage parental engagement and hopefully many parents will continue playing at home giving the children a great foundation for the future
Contact us for great discount to schools buying a case of games (25% off) and can provide discount codes to parents of children wishing to buy the game in future (we’d issue a unique code to each school that can then be used on the website to buy PLYT at a 10% discount)
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