The Fast, Effective, Evidence-Informed Way to Build Numeracy Fluency in Key Stage 2 and 3

Numeracy Ninjas Essentials is a flexible and powerful daily numeracy programme designed specifically for students in Years 3 to 9 (ages 7–14). It is pitched at the typical level of Year 7 students (ages 11-12). Built by teachers, for teachers, it provides a simple, high-impact routine that boosts students’ mental fluency, confidence, and resilience in maths.

Whether you’re using it as a starter activity, a short intervention, or as part of homework, Numeracy Ninjas Essentials brings structure and consistency to numeracy across your school.

Ninjas Skill Books

At the heart of the Numeracy Ninjas Essentials programme is the Ninja Skill Check. This is a 30 question quiz that takes approximately 5 minutes during a lesson. Each Ninja Skill Check includes a selection of 72 individual numeracy skills (Ninja Skills) that learners need to gain fluency with to succeed in 11-16 mathematics study. The Ninja Skill Check is scheduled routinely during mathematics lessons. Learners complete the quiz against the clock and then mark their answers to obtain their Ninja Score which relates to a particular colour Ninja Belt achieved. Through regular completion of Ninja Skill Checks and regular feedback from their teacher, over time learners aim to achieve the coveted Ninja Score of 30/30, Black Belt showing mastery of their numeracy skills.

When you purchase a Numeracy Ninjas subscription you receive access to the Ninja Skill Book PDFs. Over a single week the topics in a Ninja Skill Check remain the same and so you choose whether you want to run 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 sessions per week with your class. You then download the relevant Ninja Skill Books and print them for each learner.

Each of the 72 individual Ninja Skills is based around 3 categories:

Mental Strategies

Questions developing the basics of mental calculation skills. 30 topics including number bonds, addition and subtraction strategies, time and more.

Times Tables

The most important pre-requisite skill for success in 11-16 mathematics. Learners need high levels of fluency with the times tables to thrive in class.

Key Skills

30 fundamental numeracy skills which are the foundation for 11-16 mathematics success. Four operations, negative numbers etc.

Each Ninja Skill Check contains 10 questions from each category, giving 30 questions overall. Learners are encouraged to answer Mental Strategies and Times Tables questions in their head, and they can use written calculation methods to answer Key Skills questions on the workings pages in the Ninja Skill Books. Ninja Skills Checks work best if completed in a low-stakes way and regularly during lessons.

To stretch and challenge learners who master Ninja Skill Checks and to enrich the learning of all learners who enjoy mathematics, there is a weekly Extension Problem in all Ninja Skill Books which are designed to develop students’ reasoning and problem-solving skills.

Ninja Skill Book Answers

Once your learners have completed a Ninja Skill Check they mark their answers by you projecting the Ninja Skill Book Answers PDF. Students then calculate their Ninja Score (out of 30) and then look at the Ninja Belt slide showing which colour belt they have achieved in that session.

Empowered By Cognitive Science

Decades of research within a branch of Cognitive Science called the Science of Learning has shown a number of phenomena which improve human learning, specifically retention and transferability. Three of these phenomena are the Retrieval, Spacing and Interleaving Effects. The team behind Numeracy Ninjas are experts in the Science of Learning, including published authors, and have worked closely with world experts in human memory and cognition. Numeracy Ninjas resources have been designed at their core to utilise the considerable benefits of the Retrieval, Spacing and Interleaving Effects.

By incorporating both spacing and interleaving in the question scheduling for our resources, and basing the question topics on a prior-learning dependency analysis, Numeracy Ninjas is at the forefront of using cognitive science findings in educational resources to accelerate learning.

Boosting Motivation Through Gamification and Behavioural Science

Gamification strategies are central to the design of Ninja Skill Checks whereby students compete against their own previous performance to improve their score. Furthermore, we incorporated into our design the latest Behavioural Science research findings about the factors which most influence human motivation and did so in a way that was visually appealing to the target audience. These principles include: social normalisation, instant rewards and progress monitoring.

Click the headings below to learn more about how behaviour science principles were integrated into the design of Ninja Skill Checks:Social NormalisationInstant RewardsProgress Monitoring

Ninja Skills- The Gatekeepers to Progress in Mathematics

The 72 individual Ninja Skills are based on 3 categories: Mental Strategies, Times Tables and Key Skills. The 30 Mental Strategies Ninja Skills were identified by consulting best-practice literature on essential skills for numeracy development. The Times Tables and Key Skills Ninja Skills were identified through a novel Prior-Learning Dependency Analysis.

Prior-Learning Dependency Analysis

The network diagram shows a Prior-Learning Dependency Analysis of the UK GCSE Mathematics curriculum circa 2015. Each node represents a particular content skill from the curriculum, for example, rounding numbers to a given number of decimal places.

Nodes are linked by lines if one skill is a prior-learning dependency of another. For example, in order to be able to simplify fractions you need first to be able to find the factors of a number. Thus the simplifying fractions and finding factors nodes would be linked.

The nodes are then scaled proportionally to the number of outgoing links they have. I.e. the largest nodes are the skills which are the prior-learning dependencies for the most number of topics.

The largest nodes in the network are the times tables. This is undoubtedly not a surprise to mathematics teachers who know through experience how a lack of fluency with timestables multiplication (and related divisions) can be to students making progress in 11-16 maths study. For this reason, timestables multiplication and division get one third of all the question allocation in Ninja Skill Checks.

The next 30 largest nodes form the Key Skills section within the Numeracy Ninjas programme. If learners can master these individual skills to high levels of mastery, they form an excellent foundation of secure prior-learning dependencies to lay the path for success at 11-16 maths study.

By focussing your learners’ numeracy development on the 72 Ninja Skills you are ensuring they are building the right foundations for future success in mathematics.

Achievement Certificates and Ninja Belt Stickers

The Achievement Certificates are included within the Numeracy Ninjas subscription to allow your learners to track and celebrate their progress. Each Achievement Certificate has space for 10 Ninja Belt Stickers which learners stick on their certificate as they level up through the Ninja Belts. An Achievement Certificate and accompanying Ninja Belt Stickers for each learner are posted to you upon your purchase of your subscription.

Ninja Score Record Spreadsheet

The Ninja Score Record Spreadsheet allows teachers to keep track of their learner’s Ninja Score after each Ninja Skill Check. The Excel spreadsheet automatically colour codes the score with the Ninja Belt achieved. Furthermore, it includes and analysis sheet showing the highest Ninja Score and Ninja Belt achieved cumulatively by each learner and the mean score achieved by your class during each Ninja Skill Check.

Use the Ninja Score Record Spreadsheet to track student progress, identify students making good progress and those requiring additional support.

Skill Focus Worksheets

This 300 page worksheet pack features 8 days’ worth of questions for each of the 72 individual Ninja Skills.

This allows for intensive practice of individual Ninja Skills. This is ideal for progress interventions with learners who need a some confidence-building blocked practice of an individual skill before moving to the interleaved practice of the Ninja Skill Checks.

By ensuring there are questions spaced across multiple days, the resource supports students’ retention of the skills over time by utilising the Spacing Effect.

Answers are included back-to-back with question sheets to allow them to be printed double-sided questions-answers for ease of use.

Ninja Skills Assessment Pack

Evidencing impact is important. We fully understand you will want to be able to evidence the impact that Numeracy Ninjas is having your learners’ progress. Additionally, in order to maximise your classes’ learning you will want to be aware of which of the 72 individual Ninja Skills learners need to focus on in order to improve. For this reason, we have developed the Ninja Skills Assessment Pack.

The pack features 3 assessments which can be taken by your classes across the academic year (start, middle and end, or termly etc). Each assessment is split into 3 sections: mental strategies, times tables and key skills and features questions which systematically test each of the individual Ninja Skills.

Target sheets are included with each assessment, allowing learners to reflect on their performance and identify their areas for improvement after their assessment is marked.

Additionally, the Ninja Skills Assessment Pack includes an analysis spreadsheet which gives you the option of entering each learner’s score on every individual question and then producing a class progress report, or an individual learner progress report detailing their performance against each of the 72 individual Ninja Skills, including every times table from 1×1 to 12×12. Use this to target your student feedback effectively by focusing on the Ninja Skills which are not yet secure.