How we work with families
As a charity, our work almost entirely takes place in schools, but we know that parents, carers and siblings can make a huge difference and are often keen to help!
Once children have been selected for a programme, we work with families through:
- Establishing regular contact – tutors update families about lessons and answer questions that parents or carers may have.
- Inviting parents and carers to come and observe lessons or join in with workshops.
- Organising celebration assemblies in schools for families once their child has completed one of our programmes.
We also run community events, such as Family Fun Maths Mornings, where we use our NumSkills resources to show families simple games they can easily play at home. The games and activities are designed to boost confidence and resilience in mental maths.

"The NumSkills games were interactive and all of my 3 children could take part regardless of the age gaps."
Parent at Maths Morning
"The course gave me lots of ideas that I can realistically take back into the classroom straightaway." Phonics course delegate
"ReadingQuest has made a big impact on my child, it helps her with her writing, reading and boosts her confidence." Parent
Boost learning at home!
During lockdown, the QFL team prepared a selection of home-school screen-free activities which can be used at any point to support your child’s learning. You can find them all below along with some other websites that you might find useful!

Activities
Mental maths skills
We have lots of simple screen-free games and activities to support mental maths skills. Ideally you’ll need dice and playing cards – plus paper and pencils. So, download the pdf activities and turn off the computer!
Numbers to Twelve (dice needed*)
Card Match (playing cards needed*)
Aim for 21 (playing cards needed*)
Handling Money – Recognising Coins
Making Decisions about Money – Meal Planner
* If you don’t have dice or playing cards you can always make simple number cards – write the numbers 1-6 on separate pieces of paper or card, turn them face down and select a card instead of rolling the dice. This is great if you want to try out some higher numbers too!
Stories, books & reading skills
We’ve been helping children with their reading and comprehension for over twenty years! Click on any of the activities below for lots of great ideas based around stories, books and reading skills:
You can use these instructions from worldbookday.com to make your own book and write your ‘Story Bag’ creation down.
Learning at home
We’re not the only ones with lots of ideas for learning at home! Here are some other websites that you may find helpful:
National Literacy Trust – Family Zone
National Numeracy have produced a pack of free activities to download alongside their online Family Maths Toolkit
I See Maths – some great games for KS1 that the whole family can enjoy. along with maths lessons aimed at children in KS2.
NRICH – A wide range of fantastic maths activities for Ages 3 – 18!
Upcoming Family Events
From time to time we run events for families, either online or in-person at a venue in Oxfordshire. Do check back here for any news on forthcoming events.
Today's #fundersfriday shout out is to All Souls College, Oxford for their kind donation to support our work with primary-age children across Oxfordshire, addressing the education disadvantage gap in maths and literacy. Want to know more about what we do? https://t.co/ZvFDaFN04T Read More
RT @Quest_Learning: Deadlines are fast approaching - but don't panic! There's still time to book onto next week's Writing Assessment and Mo… Read More
DId anyone else catch the fabulous Oliver Jeffers on R4 Ramblings earlier this month? His wonderful book The Great Paper Caper is a great favourite with our BookQuest children! https://t.co/YGHTFWooGj #picturebooks #literacy Read More
It's #NationalNumeracyDay and we'd like to give a big shout out to all our amazing NumSkills tutors who make maths fun and engaging for children in primary schools across Oxfordshire! https://t.co/cywCNN02c7 Read More
Deadlines are fast approaching - but don't panic! There's still time to book onto next week's Writing Assessment and Moderation sessions with the focus on cross school moderation at KS1 and KS2. Find out more #assessment #moderation https://t.co/qYuruyiqov Read More
It's #fundersfriday again and today we want to thank the @ShanlyFnd for their generosity, which will allow us to continue BookQuest sessions at Thameside Primary School, boosting reading comprehension and nurturing a love of reading! Thank you so much! https://t.co/HEO6v3Jq4x Read More
Looking forward to meeting with our hardworking Trustees this evening - lots of exciting developments to share! Here are some of them on World Book Day in the lovely Thameside library, but we will let them sit on full-sized chairs for today's meeting! #charitytrustees #teamwork https://t.co/2Za9DaXqhk Read More