The Diagnostic Assessment of Numeracy Skills
The Diagnostic Assessment of Numeracy Skills (DANS) is a set of multi-sensory, diagnostic tests for students at Key Stage One and Key Stage Two who are struggling with maths. It enables teachers to determine the essential number concepts that their students have fully grasped and those concepts that they have only partly understood. The tests are largely activity based, using games and concrete resources rather than just pen and paper exercises. This allows the teacher to gain insights into the students’ knowledge, thinking, language and underlying skills, and starts their journey to a more positive view of maths.
The assessment will provide teachers with a clear map of their students’ knowledge and highlight areas that need to be reinforced in future lessons, thus enabling planning and focused support.
DANS includes all the resources that are needed for the tests including Numicon shapes, Multi-link cubes, dominoes, Base Ten, dice, counters and clocks. Card games and activities include What’s My Time? Dinoscore, Multiplication Football, Which Operation? Doubles and Halves, Mental Maths, sequencing cards and a USB drive of printable worksheets with an excel file for recording observations and comments.
At Unicornmaths DANS diagnostic assessments are carried out by Olivia Hill, a dyscalculia specialist, and are charged at £320.
DANS is available from SEN Books
Dyscalculia Assessment
A full SEND assessment involves a series of tests alongside discussions with the child and their parents. The assessment will look at areas of ability, attainment and cognitive processing, and will help identify any specific learning difficulties the child may have, including difficulties with maths.
The assessment usually lasts about three hours. A report will be produced after the assessment which will also include any identified strengths and weaknesses, as well as recommendations for home and school. The report can be used as evidence for exam access arrangements although this will need to be agreed in advance with the school. A meeting can be arranged with the parents to review the report.
At Unicornmaths SEND assessments are carried out by Carolyn Green BEd, SpLD Dip, APC, AMPatoss and are charged at £500.
Please contact Sarah Wedderburn sarahwedderburn@unicornmaths.com for further details.