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This article investigates the participation enablers and learning affordances identified by teachers through participation within an in-service community of practice (CoP) of primary teachers called the Numeracy Inquiry Community of Leader Educators (NICLE) in the Eastern Cape. The article draws on three qualitative sources of data: the annual teacher questionnaires of 42 participating teachers, interview data from 8 of the 42 sampled teachers and reflective journal entries of these 8 teachers over the first 2 years of NICLE. All three data sets point to teachers foregrounding the affordances and enablers of NICLE participation across the fundamental elements of a CoP, namely domain, community and practice. We illuminate the way in which teachers' identification of learning affordances relates to these three structural features of a CoP. In concluding, we argue that explicit consideration of these structural elements, and their interrelationship in the design of in-service programmes, could enable clearer articulation of programme aspects and support reflection on the coherence between teacher feedback on these as programmes evolve.

This paper illuminates challenges confronting teachers and students at the literacy/numeracy interface in contexts where students have not developed sufficient English language proficiency to be learning mathematics through English but, due to socio-politically and economically driven perceptions are being taught in English. We analyse transcript data of classroom talk in a South African grade 4 mathematics lesson on fractions. Together with interview data, the lesson data highlight some of the consequences students' diminished access to their home language appear to have on their access to mathematical meaning-making.

A key intervention of the South African Numeracy Chair Project (SANCP) since 2011 has been the introduction of mathematics (or maths) clubs, which occur in the out-of-school time space. In 2016 the maths club concept was developed into a 15-week Pushing for Progression (PfP) teacher development programme which supports primary school mathematics teachers to run clubs beyond the SANCP local area. Expanding intervention models beyond local schools is imperative in the second phase of the SANCP (2016-2020). Working from a mixed methods methodological approach, the researchers collected pre- and post-data for a 4-operations assessment of the entire PfP programme. In this article they share learner data from one of the nine teachers who participated in the PfP maths club programme in the Uitenhague District, Eastern Cape, South Africa, to illuminate how partnerships between academics, district officials and teachers can enable powerful student learning in the club space. They argue further that within the tightly focused development programme run by teachers in this one district, it is possible for learners to make substantive progress in mathematical proficiency (MP) (especially procedural fluency and conceptual understanding) when comparing scores and learner methods between a pre- and post- assessment.

In this article we describe the design process for an after-school Grade 3 mathematics club, based on our experiences running a pilot club in a 2011 research and development project. Working from a sociocultural perspective, we show the progression from an initial multifaceted design to a much simpler, more learner-centred design that speaks directly to our research foci and one which is based on empirical evidence. Our experiences have brought to light the entwined and dialectical nature of the data collection and design processes and the significance of the post-club reflection sessions as a powerful data collection instrument for planning the club sessions. Furthermore, we identify and shape the zone of proximal development for the purposes of our club as the critical design concept for each club session for each learner.

It is argued in this paper that there is an absence of literature relating to research on learner mathematical dispositions, particularly with young learners. Drawing on Kilpatrick, Swafford and Findell's (2001) five interrelated strands of mathematical proficiency, which include: conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, strategic competence, adaptive reasoning and productive disposition, it is argued that there has been little engagement with productive disposition in the field of mathematics education and how we might access and assess this strand. Despite competence in all strands being essential for mathematical proficiency, literature and assessments that seek to establish learner levels of mathematical proficiency have tended to focus on the first four and have neglected the last; productive disposition. Finding ways in which to access student mathematical learning dispositions can be challenging, especially with young learners who struggle to articulate their views. An instrument is shared that the author has designed with doctoral fellow, Debbie Stott, in order to access and assess the productive disposition of learners participating in maths clubs run within the South African Numeracy Chair. The findings that emerge in one Grade 3 club with six learners is shared. These findings are related to the data collected through instruments that assess the other four strands of mathematical proficiency. This enables a holistic picture of learner's mathematical proficiency as intended in the conceptualisation of the interrelated five strands of proficiency.

This article offers reflections on task design in the context of a Grade R (reception year) in-service numeracy project in South Africa. The research explores under what conditions, and for what learning purpose, a task designed by someone else may be recast and how varying given task specifications may support or inhibit learning, as a result of that recasting. This question is situated within a two-pronged task design challenge as to emerging gaps between the task designer's intentions and teacher's actions and secondly between the teachers' intentions and students' actions. Through analysing two teachers and their respective Grade R students' interpretations of a worksheet task, provided to teachers in the project, we illuminate the way explicit constraints, in the form of task specifications, can be both enabling and constraining of learning. In so doing we recast this "double gap" as enabling productive learning spaces for teacher educators, teachers and students.

The reported research attempts to trace possible reasons for third grade learners' limited progress in numeracy in a low socioeconomic status (SES) South African context. This is done through two lenses, both stemming from Sfard's commognitive (The term "commognition" has been offered by Sfard (2008) as an amalgam of "cognition" and "communication," thus expressing the unity of these concepts. Since its original appearance, some authors (including Sfard herself) have preferred using the word "communicational" to describe Sfard's framework. We chose to stick with "commognitive" because we believe it clearly points to the specific theoretical stance presented in Sfard (2008), whereas "communicational" might point to many other theories or frameworks that have something to do with human communication.) framework. One lens aims to analyze two learners' (Mina and Ronaldo (all names are pseudonyms)) mathematical and identity discourse both in one-on-one interviews and in a small group "math club" lesson led by the second author. The other examines the mathematical milieu in which these learners have participated through the analysis of a school mathematics lesson which exemplifies prevalent instructional practices in this milieu. Relying on the distinction between ritual and explorative participation, we show that while Mina was acting in an extremely ritualized manner, Ronaldo was more explorative in his actions. However, the milieu, as seen in the school lesson, encouraged almost exclusively ritual participation. Thus, while Mina was identified as a good student, Ronaldo was identified as an outcast or "troublemaker." We conclude by drawing implications to the tenacious nature of rituals in the mathematics classroom and the effects that these rituals may have on students' identities.

In this paper we highlight teacher experiences of the administration of high-stakes testing, in particular, of the 2012 Annual National Assessments (ANAs). The exploration is based on data gathered across two primary numeracy teacher development projects in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng in the form of open-ended questionnaires designed to elicit teacher experiences of the 2012 Numeracy ANAs (at Grades 1-3) and Mathematics ANAs (Grades 4-6). Fifty-four teachers across 21 schools (including fee-paying and non-fee-paying schools) completed the questionnaire. Using a grounded approach to the analysis of data, we note that, while teachers state support for the purpose of the ANAs, several concerns emerge in relation to their administration. These concerns fall largely into two categories: concern for learner experiences and concern for the implications of the administration processes (including the use of exemplars and the marking process) for teacher practices. The primary purpose of the paper is to raise awareness of the need for further discussion and research into the way in which ANAs result in possible unintended consequences.

In this paper, we describe how we came to use timed fluency activities, along with personal learner reflections on those activities, in our after-school maths club as a complementary research and development tool for assessing the changing levels of learners' mathematical proficiency over time. We use data from one case-study after-school maths club. Not only did the activities provide us as researchers, and mentors, with a quick way of tracking, evaluating, encouraging and valuing learner progress, but also with a mechanism for the learners to practice the fluency they were developing through other activities of the club. More importantly, the use of learner reflections assisted learner buy-in and reduced the stress related to such timed assessments. This alleviated, to some extent, our ethical unease with the use of such instruments. We have subsequently extended this research and development tool in all clubs that we run and continue to research their affect and effect in order to gain deeper understanding of the research and development opportunities enabled by such activities. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

This paper explores Grade R teacher expressions of themselves as teachers of numeracy, and as teachers working in the transition phase of schooling, after their participation in a research-informed numeracy-focused professional development (PD) intervention. The Early Number Fun (ENF) programme had 33 teachers from 17 Eastern Cape schools participating monthly over 18 months. Inclusion of Grade R to schooling is relatively new following policy changes in Early Childhood Development. In-service support tends to be subsumed within the Foundation Phase without attention to the specialised nature of Grade R that emphasises learning through play. ENF focused on the development of specialised teacher knowledge to support the development of early number sense through play, particularly with conceptual manipulatives. Data sources include three pre-, during, and post-PD questionnaires. Findings reveal that participation in ENF, and access to multiple research informed numeracy resources, supported teachers in their relationship with numeracy and the teaching thereof. Questionnaire responses indicate greater confidence in themselves as knowledgeable teachers of numeracy and that belonging to the ENF community supported navigation of positive professional identities within the mixed messages of policy. The findings contribute to the community-supported field of Grade R PD research and early numeracy teaching and learning. In concluding we discuss implications of this research for Grade R PD and for policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illuminates challenges confronting teachers and students at the literacy/numeracy interface in contexts where students have not developed sufficient English language proficiency to be learning mathematics through English but, due to socio-politically and economically driven perceptions are being taught in English. We analyse transcript data of classroom talk in a South African grade 4 mathematics lesson on fractions. Together with interview data, the lesson data highlight some of the consequences students' diminished access to their home language appear to have on their access to mathematical meaning-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers reflections on task design in the context of a Grade R (reception year) in-service numeracy project in South Africa. The research explores under what conditions, and for what learning purpose, a task designed by someone else may be recast and how varying given task specifications may support or inhibit learning, as a result of that recasting. This question is situated within a two-pronged task design challenge as to emerging gaps between the task designer's intentions and teacher's actions and secondly between the teachers' intentions and students' actions. Through analysing two teachers and their respective Grade R students' interpretations of a worksheet task, provided to teachers in the project, we illuminate the way explicit constraints, in the form of task specifications, can be both enabling and constraining of learning. In so doing we recast this 'double gap' as enabling productive learning spaces for teacher educators, teachers and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]