WANT your children to be top of the class in maths?Then make it accessible and enjoyable.

That’s the message from the head of maths at The Dragon School, in Bardwell Road, North Oxford, after the school was selected by education watchdog Ofsted as a national example of good practice in maths teaching.

Twenty schools with a strong track record in maths – 10 state schools and 10 from the independent sector – were interviewed by Ofsted inspectors about their methods.

Dragon maths head Dr Emily Macmillan was among those quizzed for the study.

She said: “Maths is one of those strange subjects where there is a common misconception that it’s either right or wrong.

“Some children really enjoy doing exercises and knowing they’re getting it right, but a lot of children really get quite nervous about it and worried about getting a cross in their books.”

While The Dragon School, and its linked pre-prep school Lynams, have resources that many state schools will not have access to, Dr Macmillan said there were many ways of getting children enthused.

She said: “It’s about challenging children, getting them to enjoy what they are doing and most of all teaching for understanding.

“Instead of teaching methods that can be learned but that children don’t understand, you need them to get them to understand what they are doing.

“It’s not about money or resources, it’s about connecting with every child.

“The teacher should ideally have a passion for the subject they are teaching but it’s also about having a relationship with the children, and finding out what’s going to work for that particular child.”

She advised using a variety of methods so children can find one or more which works for them, and not getting “hung up” on how the work looks on the page.

And she said teachers needed to be aware that children do things in different ways.

She said she recently got a group of lower ability children in Year Six to use algebra by using an example of elephants, referred to as ‘e’, and beans, which were referred to as ‘b’.

Dr Macmillan said: “We mathematicians are lazy, we like things to be short and simple, we don’t want anything unnecessary on the page.

“The children loved this idea, and by the end of the lesson they were writing really interesting algebraic expressions.”

Dr MacMillan's Top Tips: Ask your children about their maths because the act of explaining it verbally to you will help them understand and remember what they’ve learned.

Times tables are important for confidence but not all children will be able to master them – they need to know their 10, five and two tables and they can work the rest out from there.

Get your children to count whenever you can, and when they are older get them counting in twos.

Bring maths into everything you do – teach your child to play cribbage or blackjack, get them to help with adding up when you go shopping and play car games which involve numbers.