Testimonials

I didn't receive the support I needed in school to succeed in Maths as I struggled in the subject as I have dyscalculia and dyslexia. My confidence has improved greatly, and I am noticing that my maths in general has improved.

The tutors and staff are all there just to help you succeed, and they want you to do well. It's like having your own cheering squad for your maths!

The key to excellent sewing output is being precise with your sizes, so a good understanding of numbers is paramount. I have thoroughly enjoyed the course; the tutor was excellent and I really enjoyed the camaraderie of learning with others as a group.

The sewing machine my husband bought me many years ago may finally get used thanks to the sewing and numeracy skills I have developed on this course.

I’m really passionate about what we can do to develop our colleagues and provide them with the best chance of succeeding in their careers.

This is where Multiply worked well for us because GCSE maths just gives them something in their locker where they would not have had the opportunity previously. We’re so glad we have grabbed this opportunity with both hands, our colleagues are thoroughly enjoying it.

I think in academia it's impressed that you need to be good at maths to be good at maths. But we all do maths without noticing it every day. And you don't need that pushed in your face.

All skills are transferable, so whether you go on and do further welding or just gain something from coming and meeting different people and learning how to communicate in a different environment. I think it's all beneficial. So come and give it a go. It's free, why not!

I found the tutoring to be first class by offering encouragement and patience to someone who is slow at grasping technology. They also encouraged me to contact them at any time after the course if I have any trouble remembering some of the topics we learned.

I would encourage anyone to attend this course because not only has it been beneficial to me but the tutor made me feel confident in what I was doing and not once did I feel like a student who doesn't know anything.

For some people, it was a new experience, and it meant that we were totally in the hands of the tutor. He was very open and made everyone feel quite relaxed and comfortable. What was special about him was that he timed everything really well. He always gave time for questions. He didn’t say, “You’ll have to wait for an answer to that one.”

Everybody enjoyed it, they got a lot out of it, and the tutor proved excellent. He made it fun and was extremely helpful. He was sensitive to the needs of individuals, he was very quick to identify when someone needed a little extra support or advice

I enjoyed the Maths classes and course immensely. Since gaining my new qualification, I have found I am much more able to help and support my children with their school homework.

Employment promotions are coming up in my work, and I now know that with my new Maths qualification, I can apply. This wasn't the case before, as you needed a minimum of a GCSE in maths to apply. I found the staff very helpful and supportive, especially my teacher, who went to whatever lengths were needed for me to attain my GCSE.

It’s been fantastic to pick up on your maths and learn some new hints for your own home cooking. I can’t think of a time when I went “Oh, I never thought of that!” as much as what these classes offered me.

A lot of the appeal to this was getting me to find ways of saving money here and there. Learning your numbers is another challenge, but by doing something hands-on like this, you find yourself bypassing all those stresses because you can relax and still learn a great deal at the same time.

I needed help to organise cookery courses for our clients. We have people struggling now and the foodbank is crucial to support them. In our case, you are not just learning numeracy, you are learning how to talk with other people.

If you have to work in groups, you are learning how to talk in a group. The tutor was great and very helpful. She was easy going, and for those who needed the help, she was especially patient.

There's a range of courses which Multiply gives that can often be tweaked. I know one of the things I mentioned was about including some weekly and monthly budgeting courses, so things can be added in and the tutor has been incredibly helpful.

It has been one of the more beneficial parts of what we've done here, because you can have a base course and then customise it a little bit to what you actually need.

We wanted to focus on something outdoors which benefited the wider community so a beach clean seemed like the perfect idea. The session was very engaging and interactive - the perfect mix of maths theory and fun activities.

Working with Multiply has proved to be a great way to bring volunteers together to encourage creativity and improve numeracy skills. I would recommend to any organisation who wants to improve the numeracy skills of people they work with and have fun.

These courses are of great benefit to our learners as artists and as lyricists. It’s learning different techniques and different ways to structure the lyrics, but it's also the fact we pull out the inherent maths within that. I think anything that fuses the arts and sciences together is really progressive and effective, because those two things can be divided, but it's kind of the left and the right side of the brain.

With music, you can understand that as a flow, you can understand that as a feeling, but you can also understand it as a mathematical structure. So we're just putting the two together.

My daughter inspired me when she re-sat her GCSE maths twice to get the all-important C grade needed to follow her dream career path, this perseverance paid off for her and she's now close to qualifying as a vet nurse.

After a couple of months, I realised this was something I could do, I just needed the right guidance and lots of practice! I am so grateful for having the opportunity to have taken part in this project and feel very fortunate to have worked with a tutor who believed in me, encouraged me and didn't let me give up.

The tutor was brilliant. She was invaluable and had a lot of patience. And because it wasn't like a real timetable, I could go whenever suited me best.

Because I'm a waitress, I'm having to do maths in my everyday life. So from seeing the difference when I faced easy, everyday maths, I don’t even need to use a calculator anymore, so that’s massively helped me. My dream is to become a nurse, so the next step in this direction will be to go to an actual university for a healthcare diploma.

This space has been made available for local people to come and do something they may never have done before. That’s what it’s all about, learning. There’s always numeracy to be had in any walk of life.

There’s always work to be done, whether it’s time-related or money-related, there’ll always be some math involved. And that’s what these activities are all about, that whole “I’m going somewhere, I’m going to get something out of it, it’s going to be enjoyable, and I’m not going to feel intimidated.” It’s just trying new things, and that’s why these courses are so important for the community.

I initially thought about how we could make the residents use numbers on a day-to-day basis without even realising it. These activities have made them aware of how much they use it daily; whether that could be playing a game of crossword or glossing over the numbers in their food menu for the evening.

It’s been great to see everyone talking and engaging with everyone around them. As for myself, it’s really great when projects like Multiply come in with these new ideas. It’s been fantastic and hopefully, they’ll enjoy it more and more.

The great thing about Multiply is we're able to arrange one-to-one workshops or small groups for our beneficiaries to go on and gain new skills, and build confidence. And it's also something that they're able to then see alongside a certificate. But they've also made something from that workshop or course.

So it's just a great opportunity for them to just link in as well with the college, making sure that they've got all the skills that they need to go into their dream goal of a job.

It’s gone down well, when we first told them that we were incorporating maths into it, they were all "Ugh... no way!" But they’ve all done really well. It’s basic maths with strings and crafts, and they’ve all thoroughly enjoyed it and keep coming back for more.

They can’t get enough of it! I think while people here can develop their creative side, they’re also bringing maths into it, and it’s good for their wellbeing and mental health. Hopefully, it will encourage them to do more. That’s the main thing, keeping up after the course has finished.

Taking on this course has been an incredibly rewarding journey for me. It offered a tailored and supportive environment that allowed me to focus on areas where I needed improvement.

Compared to a traditional classroom setting, the course structure felt much more personalized and efficient, helping me understand concepts at my own pace. With my newly gained qualification, I am excited to further my studies and share my enthusiasm for maths with others.

I’ve not always been comfortable with maths. My experience with work has helped me with that, but the tutors on these courses fully understand our capabilities and are more than willing to help us. They’re just perfect tutors who care about the way you get on with the courses.

Multiply is definitely the place to come because they understand that not everyone can do maths and it is good for me because it can help your kids as well. Well, grandchildren in my case!

We support a wide-range of learners here at Co-Options and everyone’s numeracy ability is different. However, Multiply is able to adapt sessions for all learners and we’ve seen a big increase in confidence and capability amongst all learners. One of the most important things is that all Multiply sessions have been fun and engaging.

The fact that learners can now add Multiply courses to their CV and take certificates to job interviews is fantastic and it really boosts their prospects in the working world.

Although I am still practising maths, I now have more understanding of the methods used and the purposes which i apply during everyday life, especially at work placement during maths lessons.

I'd say this course is the best way to develop skills because it's a chance to learn with the flexibility and the friendly one-on- one lessons. The course offers support to anyone, regardless of their age and it's free to them.

We’re always looking for opportunities for our group, so with it being free, it was accessible to them, and it gave them a good chance to have a taster and to see what we might put on in future.

What has developed more is their belief in their numeracy skills. We’ll have all of our group that are adults with complex needs, and we have a lot that will come in and say “No, I can’t do this.” By doing it in a game, they realise they have potential.

I initially started doing GSCE Numeracy to help me improve my maths skills and get them to a level that will enable me to help my son when he reaches that stage in school.

Since starting my tutor sessions, not only has my mathematical capability increased but there has also been a huge jump in my confidence. I appreciate all the help and teaching I have received and would definitely encourage others to take that first step, it makes a difference!

We were contacted by Multiply and they explained what they could offer and it sounded interesting. They were happy to adapt resources as needed in order to accommodate the extra support our members would need.

The tutor was engaging and willing to adapt as the session went along. The maths games were fun. For some it was their first time playing these sorts of games, and they enjoyed them very much.

It’s easier having these classes with just me, my sister, and the tutor. My sister is quite shy so she would never put her hand up in a big classroom setting to ask for help. I would, but if you’re not as confident you don’t want to shout the answer or ask for help in case you got it wrong. It’s easier when it’s in these 1:1 settings for us by far.

With these lessons, I don’t dread coming in at all. It’s enjoyable, and I’m understanding it more than I ever did before. I have a lot of friends who have wanted to join when I told them about it.

We are achieving fantastic things, not only with what we’re delivering ourselves, but with partner organisations, and Multiply is a massive one that has supported us along the way.

It's exciting because these courses give our group something else to focus on rather than just being a parent. We're passionate about Rhyl, and I know our families are and I know Multiply are. I'm excited to see what the future can bring and what sort of continued opportunities we can offer from here.

One of the big things about beach cleaning is that you can bring numeracy into it so easily. If we can have any data to back that up, especially big numbers that then tends to put the message across far better than just simply saying, “oh, there’s rubbish there.”

I think sometimes we focus so much on education in school and we forget about the wider population and anything that can make numeracy more relevant to them is to be applauded.

During my experience, I have gained the skill of being able to weld alongside using numbers, and learned that I enjoyed it and found a new skill that I was good at. The tutor was very kind and good at explaining what to do.

I was able to be creative and practise different techniques of welding. I definitely think more people should be aware of the Multiply courses and take advantage of them. You never know, it might turn out to be something you will enjoy through the use of numeracy.

I thought that the one-on-one lessons were really helpful for learning things quite quickly and having a more dedicated, curated course which let me really sink my teeth into it. I can say I'm quite happy about my grade, I think Multiply really gave me the help I needed to get this result under my belt.

I've been through a lot of different sorts of courses during this period of my life and I found that a lot of them didn't work out as well for me, but Multiply was able to keep me going until the end and keep me motivated

The tutor was an extremely organised person who planned his lessons carefully, and, very importantly, he had the gift of being able to explain everything in an interesting and understandable way, managing to convince even someone like me, who had such a bad experience of the subject before, that mathematics is fun - and not difficult!

I thoroughly enjoyed the lessons and understood everything he explained to me!

With doing carpentry there's a lot of math that comes into it. There's a very good tutor here. If someone wants help with some math and so on, to work things out, he's been there, helping.

It's been worth it, and I'd encourage anyone who's interested in wood work and wants to come, to come immediately. It's a very good course. I've enjoyed it and I've benefited from it, and learned new skills, and I can hopefully take those skills home with me.

Classes like these can be very important for parents as things have changed since we were in school, nowadays there are many different ways of adding and multiplying. It’s Important for parents to understand their homework so that they can help the children.

The tutor has also been doing crafts before, she is so friendly, down to earth and she’s not making it look scary. Local people know us here and know that they can come here for anything. People know that they can come in and learn.

We thought a night of chess games would suit a community space like ours quite well and we saw the numeracy elements as a big plus to the activities.

A big advantage to working with Multiply has been their focus on teaching a small group. The tutor can repeat something or allow the attendees to ask for help about something specific. The excel course was very beneficial as attendees need to depend on it day to day in their workplace.

The tutorials were invaluable in that they consisted of a series of past papers which established very clearly the areas of uncertainty.

I would like to express my appreciation of my tutor, partly for realising that a barrage of mock examinations was the best way to proceed but also for explaining in understandable terms those areas that I found perplexing.

All those that came to it were just absolutely thrilled. I'm so glad it was so well delivered in a nice, easy to understand way, and it's really helped people to gain that confidence with their numbers.

A couple of the staff have even set up little Excel spreadsheets tests so that they can practice at home, just so that they've got something that they can play around with and learn from. The tutor was very supportive, was very calm and was completely able to pitch at the right level, depending on who he was teaching at the time. And I think that was a very good example of an adult teacher.