IKAN results... a small ray of hope

My pupils were tested on their knowledge earlier this term. Generally in New Zealand, this involves the IKAN test. My pupils however often need to be retested on the JAM (junior assessment for maths) to get a clearer idea of what they know as opposed to what they can hear, read, parse, recall, then write down within 3 seconds.

After seeing the results, I had a sense of a general increase in certain domains of maths, especially fractions. I have put it to the test and made a comparison.

Colour coded IKAN shift for 2018

With green being the code for an increase in level, this screenshot of my spreadsheet shows that there has indeed been a general improvement in the Overall Level out of the pupils present for both tests (there is one coding error for pupil #28, which made no overall change). IKAN's Overall Level though, is taken from the lowest score within the domain scores, so it doesn't necessarily show improvement. The large number of increases in fractions demonstrates this phenomenon.

I have taken the small win in fractions and have moved on to improving basic facts for the remainder of this term (since about Week 7), and next term I will focus on place value.

Basic Facts Boxes

Basic Facts... a gap in knowledge that I never had when I was growing up. A gap in knowledge that prevents or hinders improvement in most areas of mathematics. How can Basic Facts knowledge in children, who are in some cases quite far behind expected ability, be brought back to average and boosted further?

Here's something I developed to give it a go.


This Google Sheet populates boxes with random addition and subtraction problems to solve. On entering an answer, the sheet checks the answer and gives immediate feedback. Another sheet in this Spreadsheet does the same for times tables and the corresponding division facts.

I tested the first version of this on my own pupils to limited success. The positive is that many of the kids wanted to keep going until they got everything correct. The negative was that they didn't take screenshots of the boards that had errors, so there was no record of their improvement.

A colleague, Robyn Anderson tested version 2 (without the times tables) with her class. You can read about her success and outcomes I never expected from this tool on her blog post.

The inspiration for this tool came from two places. The first being a Japanese tool for memorising basic facts and the second being Monty Jones's (Tāmaki College) spreadsheets for practising maths problems at secondary school level.

Feel free to copy it, use it, attribute it, and tell me about the successes and challenges you have had.