Elin wins national numeracy award

Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor student Elin Mai Jones has won a national accolade for developing her maths skills.

Elin, from Pwllheli, has received The Worshipful Livery Company of Wales (WLCOW) Financial Numeracy Improvement Award.

Each academic year, WLCOW awards the accolade to young people who have made significant progress in financial literacy skills. The award includes a £500 cash prize to enable the recipients to purchase hardware, software, books and other materials to help support continued financial literacy improvement.

Elin hopes to go to university to train as a primary school teacher, and plans to use her £500 award to pay towards her course fees and a new laptop.

The 18-year-old is studying Level 3 Health and Social Care at Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor’s Pwllheli campus. She arrived at college in 2022 without any GCSEs, having missed out on her exams after being hospitalised with a serious health issue.

“I couldn’t do anything for about two years,” she said. “I was in hospital for two to three months and couldn’t do my schoolwork. I spent my 15th birthday in hospital.”

In her first year at college, Elin was enrolled on Level 1 Application of Number (AoN) to develop the numeracy skills she had missed out on.

She passed this with flying colours before doing the same with Level 2, then in her second year progressed to GCSE Maths - gaining a C grade last summer.

“It was hard because I was learning it all for the first time, and it was all crammed into one year when other people have done it over three years,” said Elin.

She said her maths teacher Dylan Owen had been a big help, adding: “He changed my view of maths, encouraging me to look at it as problem-solving rather than numbers.”

Dylan says Elin has not only developed her own numerical skills, but also helps classmates with maths problems - boding well for a career as a teacher.

In nominating Elin for the WLCOW award, he wrote: “Elin's effort and ability have been beyond outstanding over the three years she has been at college.

“Her dedication, eagerness and desire to further develop herself with numerical matters can be easily seen from her success in gaining a C in GCSE Maths last year.

“Not only has Elin dedicated her time to improving her own ability, but by further developing her confidence and knowledge she has been able to help others with their mathematical work, which is a key skill to develop her future career.

“Her confidence (in maths) will give her the best platform to teach and improve numerical skills for the next generation of young children in the local area.”

Health and Social Care lecturer Angharad ab Iorwerth said: “As Elin’s personal tutor, I’m thrilled she has been successful in winning this award.

“It is a recognition of her achievements here in college and her ambition to support others within her future career prospects.

“I am very supportive of the skills team here in the college as I ensure that the mathematical/numeracy skills the students develop are used in the main course.”

Now in her third year at college, Elin has recovered from her health issues, and is also studying GCSE English as she looks to gain the necessary qualifications to be accepted onto a Primary Education degree.

She says the Level 3 Health and Social Care course has helped her realise her vocation.

“I didn’t really have any idea of the future when I was ill,” she added. “Since I started Health and Social Care I’ve become interested in working with young children - I also work at a soft play centre, and I’ve realised that teaching is what I want to do.”

WLCOW is dedicated to helping young people throughout Wales to develop their talents and skills through its annual awards programme of scholarships and bursaries to students in schools, universities and technical colleges, as well as to apprentices and young people in the armed forces.

It was founded in 1993 as the Welsh Livery Guild, to promote education, the arts, science and technology in Wales. In 2013 the Guild was presented with a Royal Charter and was renamed the Worshipful Livery Company of Wales.

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