Multiply
Numeracy is about understanding and using maths in your daily life, whether at home, work, or school.
Multiply was a three year Government-funded programme, which ran from 2022 – 2025. It was designed to help adults improve their numeracy skills through access to fully funded courses.
A lot of people are scared of maths and have unpleasant memories of maths from school. What a lot of us don’t realise is that we use maths every day without realising it. The Multiply programme wasn’t just about preparing a learner to take a maths exam, it was about drawing out the maths we use on a daily basis and to build those skills to improve maths confidence.
“I’ve been scared of maths all my life, now I feel a little braver when supporting my kids with their maths homework and working with numbers in general.”
Lincolnshire County Council was supported by 24 provider partners to widen access and participation around the county. Over the 3 years we ran 874 courses through a diverse range of subjects, embedding maths into the course content. Popular courses included: Count on Crafts; Managing Money; Maths in Catering; Airfrying on a Budget; Ready, Calculate, Cook; Building Confidence with maths; Slow Cooking on a Budget as well as introductory courses to Functional Skills qualifications.
“I’ve been scared of maths all my life, now I feel a little br“This maths course has enabled me to continue further training to progress to the next band level in my job role. Having a maths qualification is now giving me the flexibility to apply for other courses.”aver when supporting my kids with their maths homework and working with numbers in general.”
Over the course of the whole programme, there were nearly 6000 starts on maths-related courses. Not all of the participants went on to gain a qualification, but many have gone on to further learning across our provision.
The programme engaged 5421 people through innovative and interesting outreach activities including Making Pizzas in school playgrounds, National Numeracy Day activities, library Lego brick building sessions and Halloween themed events amongst many others.
“I feel with each course I am getting more confident; I feel a little less stressed each time.”
“Because you made this fun, I’m not afraid of Maths anymore and I really know that I can do this now. Thank you.”
Multiply Champions
As part of the innovation that was encouraged through the Multiply Programme, Lincolnshire introduced Multiply Champions. Their role was to promote and support numeracy development for employees or individuals in the local community and their organisations. Each Champion organisation could do this in a way that best fitted their skills and abilities and the needs of their audience. The proposed activities were often broad ranging and time consuming. As an acknowledgement of this, we were able to award Multiply Champion organisations with a modest grant, in support, recognition and thanks for their investment of time, patience, expense, energy, enthusiasm and creativity.
This has been one of the most successful parts of the programme and we funded a total of 48 unique organisations over the 3 years of the funding from a real mix of sectors. There were housing associations and hostels, a Fire and Safety solutions business, a domestic abuse support service, historic museums, a large food preparation company, a Parish Council, an open prison, pre-school, primary and secondary schools and a university, and a mix of community groups, businesses and charities that primarily support the seldom heard community with essential nourishment, professional advice, innovative arts and crafts activities, safe spaces, training and lots of other valuable resources.
These businesses and community groups have a workforce of either employees or volunteers ranging in size from 5 to over 1200 people and operate across the whole of Lincolnshire.
LINCOLNSHIRE ACTION TRUST
“One of our multiply champions recently delivered a series of 3 sessions with one of our community women’s groups. The women are currently on probation and are facing a range of challenges in the community.
Our Champion co-produced a workshop with the women that would help them to explore issues around money management and provide a safe space to develop skills.
Six women initially attended, and four women attended all three sessions which is incredible for women facing so many challenges in their lives.
They all really enjoyed the course and have demonstrated enthusiasm to try more co-produced work.”
BISHOP GROSSETESTE UNIVERSITY
“I took my son regularly to the multiply sessions at the Ermine library and Community Hub to help expand our learning with numbers.
From a parent’s view point the fun activities have given me inspiration on how to embed them into play and learning at home. From partaking, I feel more confident at doing simple hands-on activities at home like counting, sorting and playing with numbers in order to help my son’s introduction to numeracy.”
We have been really pleased with the success of the Lincolnshire Multiply Champions – with 219 Champions recruited across the timeframe of the programme.
Project Evaluation
We have undertaken a full external evaluation of the programme and the full report will be available here soon
If you’ve been inspired to take your first or next step into learning new skills and boosting your confidence, you can find all of our latest courses on the 2aspire course finder