Download - RM plc

User Guide

Contents
What is RM Easimaths? .............................................................................................................. 3
Support ...................................................................................................................................... 4
Getting started ........................................................................................................................... 4
Log in to RM Easimaths ......................................................................................................................... 4
The Teacher dashboard .............................................................................................................. 5
Topic menu .......................................................................................................................................... 11
Groups ................................................................................................................................................... 5
Adding a group ...................................................................................................................................... 8
Edit group name .................................................................................................................................... 9
Deleting a group .................................................................................................................................... 9
Adding a pupil to a group ...................................................................................................................... 9
Deleting a pupil from a group ............................................................................................................. 10
Getting a pupil’s password .................................................................................................................. 10
Problem skills ........................................................................................................................................ 7
Reports .................................................................................................................................................. 5
Pupil homepage........................................................................................................................ 12
School administrator ................................................................................................................ 14
Teacher setup ...................................................................................................................................... 15
Account creation email ....................................................................................................................... 15
Pupil set up .......................................................................................................................................... 16
Import Groups ..................................................................................................................................... 17
Deleting a teacher or pupil.................................................................................................................. 18
Print details ......................................................................................................................................... 18
Getting the most from RM Easimaths ....................................................................................... 19
The teacher’s role ............................................................................................................................... 19
Integrating RM Easimaths with other maths teaching ....................................................................... 19
Accessing from home .......................................................................................................................... 19
How RM Easimaths works ........................................................................................................ 20
Curriculum design and structure......................................................................................................... 20
Focus on mental methods ................................................................................................................... 20
Curriculum presentation ..................................................................................................................... 20
Help and support................................................................................................................................. 21
Skill attainment ................................................................................................................................... 21
Progression.......................................................................................................................................... 21
Regression ........................................................................................................................................... 21
Success and motivation ....................................................................................................................... 22
Problem skills ...................................................................................................................................... 22
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 2 of 22

What is RM Easimaths?
RM Easimaths is online maths tuition for 5 to 11 year olds for use at school and home. It is designed to
help students improve their maths skills and capabilities, and is based on the proven and popular RM
Maths software. RM Easimaths combines engaging activities with a personal learning programme for
each learner and detailed progress reports for teachers.
RM Easimaths has more than 3,000 interactive activities supporting a ‘little and often’ approach, ideally
with pupils using RM Easimaths for 10-15 minutes per day, between three and five times a week.
RM Easimaths has its own built-in diagnostics that run continuously in the background, capturing critical
data on individual performance. This data in turn determines which exercises and materials are selected
– the pupil progresses to new and more difficult activities as they succeed, but if they get an activity
wrong, they temporarily regress to a related but simpler skill in the same topic, before returning to try
the same skill again later.
There are nine topic areas which pupils progress through, but they are prevented from getting too far
ahead in any one topic, ensuring that prerequisite skills in other topics have been tackled first. Existing
maths skills are kept ‘simmering’ in the background while pupils move onto new maths concepts,
keeping existing skills alive with continuous practice.
The automatic collection of data on pupil progress also enables meaningful, objective reporting to
provide teachers with all the information and data they need for targeted planning to support specific
learning interventions. Difficulties can be identified and addressed at individual, group and whole-class
level.
A cast of fun characters appear throughout the activities to help the pupils identify with the problems to
be solved and maintain their interest.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 3 of 22

Support
If you require support using RM Easimaths, look through this guide to see if it provides an answer to
your query. For further help and technical support you can visit the RM Easimaths website:
http://www.rmeasimaths.com/help.
Getting started
In order to view the RM Easimaths activities, you will need Adobe® Flash® Player. If you do not already
have it on your computer, you can install it for free here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/. Only
download Flash Player from the official Adobe® site. (Some browsers, such as Google Chrome, already
have Adobe® Flash® Player built-in.)
Headphones will be required as the activities use audio to provide instruction and assistance.
No reading ability is assumed for RM Easimaths and full audio support is given.
Log in to RM Easimaths
If you have not been provided with an RM Easimaths account, please check with your School
Administrator for RM Easimaths.
To set up RM Easimaths in a School, please see the School Administration section.
On the RM Easimaths homepage, click ‘Log in here’.
Enter your username and password, click ‘Login’ and
you will be taken to the Teacher dashboard.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 4 of 22

The Teacher dashboard
Frequent use of the Teacher dashboard is a vital part of getting the most from RM Easimaths.
Teachers should view the dashboard at least once a week to:
1. Check that pupils are performing their sessions as expected.
2. Monitor pupils’ progress through the curriculum.
3. Discover if there are any skills that pupils have had with, either individually or as a group.
The Teacher dashboard is accessible by all users with a teacher account and allows
teachers to view the topic menu (where they can access activities), groups, problem
skills and reports. They can also update their details by clicking ‘My details’.
Reports
The ‘Reports’ tab is the first screen visible when entering the dashboard. The first drop down gives the
options of ‘Overview’, ‘Progress’, ‘Attainment’ and ‘Usage’.
Overview shows the progress of a class against the skills, with each skill divided into ‘viewed’,
‘mastered’ and ‘problem skills’ according to the percentage of activities completed that fall into these
categories. Rolling over each coloured portion shows the number of skills in each category.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 5 of 22

To see an overview for a different group, click the group button that displays the name of the desired
group. The graph will change accordingly to display the data for the selected group. (Settings applied in
each tab in the dashboard are independent of each other to allow flexibility in comparing data.)
Progress shows which national curriculum levels pupils have mastered during a selected time period.
Clicking on ‘Compare pupils’ opens a pop-up window, allowing the teacher to select up to four pupils to
compare on the graph. Pupils’ names are shown at the top of the graph with a colour key to identify a
pupil on the graph and an ‘x’ button to remove the pupil from the graph. A node on a pupil line
represents a session – rolling over a node on a pupil line on the graph will show the date of the session.
Attainment shows how each pupil is getting on, listing their estimated start level, their level mastered,
the total time they have spent on the activities and the number of problem skills. The start and end date
can also be selected.
Usage shows the hours spent by each pupil on the activities, and the proportion of skills mastered and
skills viewed. The start and end date, and the pupils shown can be changed.
The reports can be printed or downloaded as CSV
files.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 6 of 22

Problem skills
If a pupil repeatedly fails to answer a skill correctly a number of times, they will be regressed
automatically to an earlier skill that should aid their understanding of the more difficult task.
Once the pupil has mastered the regression activity, they will then be given the more difficult skill in
their next session.
The regression process occurs a number of times so that a pupil has the opportunity to complete the
activity before the skill is marked as a problem skill. See the section on Regression for further
information on the process.
Once a skill has been flagged as a problem skill, the pupil is progressed to the next activity in the topic
and the problem is flagged in the system for their teacher’s attention.
Regular monitoring of these problem skills reveals areas where a pupil is struggling and allows teachers
to target additional teaching. As the number of pupils who had problems with a particular skill is listed,
teachers are able to target specific teaching to the whole class or a particular group of pupils.
The Problem Skills screen lists the activities pupils have completed where one or more pupils have had
difficulties. Problems are grouped by skill, and are displayed in a list of expandable rows with the highest
frequency of issues at the top of the list.
Click ‘Preview activity’ to run the activity.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 7 of 22

A pupil can be retested on the skill the next time they log in by ticking the
tick box next to the pupil’s name and clicking on ‘Retest selected’.
Problem skills are automatically added back into the pupil’s sessions after a period of 30 days, which
reduces the need to manually retest skills as RM Easimaths will do this for the teacher.
Groups
Groups are managed from the ‘Groups’ screen in the Teacher dashboard. Pupils can log in to RM
Easimaths even if they are not added to a group, but it is recommended that all pupils should be added
to at least one group. Teachers can create as many or as few groups as required. By grouping pupils,
teachers are able to compare the progress of everyone in the group. There can be one group per class or
several groups, such as ones for confident mathematicians or those who need extra support. Pupils can
belong to more than one group.
Adding a group
1. From the Teacher dashboard ‘Groups’ page, click ‘Add group’.
2. The ‘Enter a group name’ box appears. Type in the name of the new group.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 8 of 22

3. Click ‘OK’. The new group name appears on the ‘Groups’ page, and the teacher will be taken to the
‘Add pupils’ screen (see below).
Edit group name
To edit the group name, click ‘Edit group’. This will lead to the ‘Add pupils’ screen. Click ‘Edit name’ and
a pop-up will appear. Type in the new name and click ‘OK’ (or ‘Cancel’ to leave without any changes).
Deleting a group
1. To delete a group, click the cross in the corner of the class
button.
2. A warning will appear asking for confirmation of the delete action. Please note that deleting the
group will not delete the pupils’ details and reporting information.
3. Click ‘OK’ to delete the group from the system.
Adding a pupil to a group
1. To add a pupil to a group, click the group button and click ‘Edit group’.
2. An ‘Add pupils’ pop-up containing a list of all pupils on the system will appear (this will
automatically appear when a new group is created). This list can be filtered by age, level or
initial, or a teacher may search by entering the pupil’s name in the search box.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 9 of 22

3. Click the ‘Add’ button next to the pupils to be added to the group.
4. Click ‘Back to groups’ when finished.
5. The group is updated to show the pupils in their new group.
Deleting a pupil from a group
There are two ways to remove a pupil from a group.
1. In the ‘Edit group’ pop-up, click ‘Remove’ next to the pupils that are to be
removed and click ‘Back to groups’. The group will be updated.
2. In the Groups screen, click in the tick box next to the pupils to
be removed, and click ‘Delete selected pupils’. A warning will
appear asking for confirmation. However, by removing a pupil
from a group, their details and reporting information will not be deleted.
3. Click ‘OK’ and the group will be updated (or ‘Cancel’ to leave the pop-up without any changes).
Getting a pupil’s password
To retrieve a pupil’s password, click the information button in the ‘status’ column next to
their name.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 10 of 22

Topic menu
The content in RM Easimaths can be accessed through the Topic menu from the Teacher dashboard.
From here, the context may be explored outside of the progress tracking system used for learners. The
menu can also be used as a whole class teaching tool to explore concepts before learners practice the
skills through their own login.
The topics are listed down the left-hand side – click on a topic to view the aspects of the maths
curriculum covered and the skills list containing links to the relevant activities.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 11 of 22

Pupil homepage
When the pupil logs in, they are taken to their personalised page linking to an activity from the level
they have been positioned (see admin section); or, if they have used RM Easimaths before, at the level
they had previously reached.
The pupil clicks on ‘Let’s GO’ to open the activity.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 12 of 22

The activity can be enlarged to take up the full screen by clicking on ‘Full screen’.
At each screen, the pupil hears an audio instruction. When they have completed the
activity, they click the arrow in the bottom right corner of the screen. If the answer is
correct, a new activity appears.
If it is wrong, the pupil gets two more chances. If the third answer is also incorrect, the pupil is told the
correct answer and is taken to a new activity. The activity the pupil is taken to next is determined by
how they do on a previous activity. This is explained in ‘How RM Easimaths works’ below.
The pupil can get more information on an activity by clicking the information button in the
top-left corner.
The pupil can end a session at any time by clicking the cross in the top-right
corner of the screen.
If the activity is not used for 20 minutes, the user login session will time out. If that happens, then they
will need to log in again. It is recommended that the user logs out and then closes their browser after
completing a session.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 13 of 22

School administrator
When first logging in as an administrator, the following pop-up will appear:
There is a ‘School setup’ button on both the pop-up and the Teacher dashboard.
Click this to create and edit teacher and pupil details.
Administrators can also update school details by clicking ‘Change school
details’.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 14 of 22

Teacher setup
1. In ‘School setup’ the first screen is the Teacher setup.
2. Click ‘Add Teacher’. The button changes to ‘Cancel’ and at this point no
other teacher can be edited.
3. Select a Title, add in the Forename, Surname and email address.
4. Select if they should have admin rights – a warning box will appear explaining what this means.
5. The Status will show as ‘In progress’ until the teacher has verified their account. The ‘Cancel’
button reverts to ‘Add teacher’.
6. To email the account creation details to the added teacher, tick the tick box and click ‘Email
details’. A warning will appear asking for confirmation.
Account creation email
1. The teacher will receive an email containing a link to their account creation page.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 15 of 22

2. When the teacher has created their account by typing a username and
password, their status will change to ‘Active’.
3. A pop-up appears showing the account details.
Pupil set up
1. In ‘School setup’, select the Pupil setup tab.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 16 of 22

2. Click ‘Add Pupil’. The button changes to ‘Cancel’ and at this point no other
pupil can be edited.
3. Add in the Forename, Surname and Date of birth.
4. Select a national curriculum level from 1c to 6a. This will determine the level of activity the pupil
will begin on when they log on for the first time. It is recommended that the level is set slightly
lower, so that the pupil starts on easier content to begin with. (The pupil can log in if they don’t
have a level set, but when they click the start button then they get an error message asking
them to contact the teacher.)
5. The Status will now show as ‘Created’.
6. A pop-up appears showing the account details.
If a pupil’s details need amending after they have been added, click on the detail to be changed in the
‘Pupil setup’ page.
Import Groups
Instead of adding pupils individually, a pupil list can by imported by
clicking on ‘Import pupils details’ and browsing to a CSV file.
The CSV file needs to contain a column for:
• Forname
• Surname
• Date of birth
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 17 of 22

It does not matter if the column headings are different
as a ‘match headings’ pop-up allows the teacher to
select columns from their CSV file.
After importing, the national curriculum start levels
need to be added for each pupil.
To get a list of pupil user names and passwords, click ‘Export Groups’.
This CSV file may be directly opened or saved to a computer.
Deleting a teacher or pupil
1. To delete a teacher or pupil, tick the tick box against that user’s
details in the list, and click ‘Delete selected’.
2. A warning will appear asking for confirmation. This is because deleting a teacher will delete all
the teacher’s details from the system, and deleting a pupil will remove all details and reporting
information.
3. Click ‘Continue’ to delete the teacher or pupil from the system, or ‘Cancel’ to stop the action.
Print details
A list of teachers or pupils may be printed by selecting the appropriate tab and
clicking ‘Print details’.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 18 of 22

Getting the most from RM Easimaths
The teacher’s role
Use the Teacher dashboard at least once a week to check that the pupils are spending the required
amount of time using RM Easimaths, and to see whether they are having any problems. This information
can be used to improve teaching in the classroom. This can take the form of helping individuals or
groups, or teaching the class as a whole. By acting on the information retrieved from the Teacher
dashboard, the effectiveness of RM Easimaths is significantly increased.
Ensure that the pupils use RM Easimaths regularly – an average of three or four sessions a week
produces the best learning gains, and 15 minutes is the ideal session time – long enough for a pupil to
settle and concentrate on their work, but without exceeding their attention span. The program is
designed to be used by one pupil at a time, rather than in pairs or larger groups.
Different teachers choose to integrate the use of the system into their daily routine in different ways.
However, a common pattern is that it can take up to a month before most teachers and pupils learn to
accept it as part of the classroom routine − so it is worth persevering!
Integrating RM Easimaths with other maths teaching
The system works by ensuring that pupils work on several topics in each session. This ensures that a
wide range of topics are practised and fresh in pupils’ minds. This approach is different to that of normal
classroom teaching, where the focus of a maths session would normally be on a specific topic or skill.
Some teachers have initially been concerned that the pupils’ work in RM Easimaths is not synchronised
with their class teaching or other maths schemes. However, they have soon realised that RM Easimaths
is designed to work independently and, because a range of topics are kept ‘simmering’ in pupils’ minds,
the pupils are, in fact, more likely to understand new material introduced by the teacher. The pupil
profiles produced by RM Easimaths can also be extremely useful in helping the teacher split the pupils
into differentiated groups as part of their whole-class teaching strategies.
Teachers can generate reports of their pupils’ progress in terms of the national curriculum. These
reports can be used to inform their teaching strategy and lesson plans, or to support the professional
assessments of their pupils.
Accessing from home
RM Easimaths is easy to use, so pupils can work independently at school and at home, learning at their
own pace. Encouraging pupils to access RM Easimaths enables parents and carers to get actively
involved in learning at home.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 19 of 22

How RM Easimaths works
Curriculum design and structure
• The system has been carefully designed by some of the UK’s leading maths experts.
• Finely graded progression means each skill is a small step on from the last, making learning
easier.
• The sequencing of skills has been carefully considered to make sure prerequisite skills are in
place when they are needed.
Focus on mental methods
• The focus is on building mental fluency in pupils’ number work.
• The emphasis is on developing a range of strategies for doing mental arithmetic, and building a
sound foundation for future mathematics development through an understanding of the
structure of numbers. The on-screen and aural approach ensures a focus on mental procedures.
Examples of strategies employed
• Instant recognition of 5 objects as being 5 in number.
• Developing ‘5’ as a key stepping stone to ‘10’.
• Looking for patterns in numbers: 6 + 2 = 8, 16 + 2 = 18, 26 + 2 = 28
• Learning and recalling addition bonds (for example, 5 + 4 = 9) and partition bonds (for example,
9 = 5 + 4) to 10.
• Understanding the significance of the ‘decade barrier’ and that 9 + 4 is harder than 11 + 4
without counting on.
• Performing subtraction by complementary addition (for example, 27 – 23 can be thought of as
23 + ? = 27).
• Use of number lines and number grids as a way of visualising number operations.
• Knowing that if you can do 3 + 2, then 30 + 20 is not much more difficult just because the
numbers are bigger.
• Understanding and applying the commutativity principle (for example, 2 + 17 looks a lot easier
when thought of as 17 + 2; similarly 9 × 3 may be more easily recalled as 3 × 9).
• Building up a real understanding of place value by breaking numbers into their component parts
(for example, 52 = 50 + 2).
• Transforming ‘hard’ problems into easier problems using ‘stepping stone’ stages:
o 44 + 37 is the same as 44 + 30 + 7, which is 74 + 7
o 37 + 8 can be thought of as 37 + 3 + 5, which is 40 + 5
• The importance of estimation in assessing your answers and spotting ‘silly’ mistakes (for
example, 317 + 482 is approximately 300 + 500, so the answer should be approximately 800).
Curriculum presentation
• Topics are selected ‘randomly’ to improve variety and keep all topics ‘simmering’ even if other
classroom maths work is currently focused on a specific topic.
• Each skill has many different contextual variants and may explore a range of number values,
making more than 3,000 different activities.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 20 of 22

Help and support
There are three levels of response to mistakes:
• The first time the pupil makes a mistake within an activity, they are generally told that their
answer wasn’t correct and asked to have another go. This means pupils who make accidental
mistakes do not have to listen to explanations before having another chance to get the skill
right. Also, being able to identify and correct their mistakes is part of the learning process.
• If their second attempt is also unsuccessful, they may be given a ‘clue’. The clue may be auditory
or visual or both. In some cases this might be a comment about why their answer is wrong; in
other activities, part of the correct solution is given.
• If they still fail to find the right answer after three attempts, the program intervenes and
completes the activity for the pupil.
Skill attainment
• Each skill has an associated number known as its attainment criterion. The attainment criterion
affects forward progress through a topic as follows: if a skill has an attainment criterion of 3, the
pupil progresses to the next new skill only when they achieve three consecutive, first-time
correct answers to the current skill.
• The attainment criterion determines the amount of ‘practice’ the program requires the pupil to
have at each skill. Attainment criteria vary between 1 and 6 – the majority of skills have an
attainment criterion of 3.
Progression
• Progression happens at different rates for each pupil depending on their answers and their work
rate.
• When a pupil has attained a skill, they will progress on to the next skill in that topic when they
are next presented with that topic.
• The program automatically makes sure that pupils progress fairly evenly in all topics. If they fall
behind in one topic, the program automatically adjusts the mix of activities to give them more of
the topic they are struggling in. This ensures that they do not race ahead in one topic and have
problems because they have not covered prerequisite skills in other topics.
• Only first-time correct answers are considered when the program decides to move the pupil on
to the next skill. Second time correct answers neither confirm that the pupil has understood a
concept, nor show conclusively that they have not.
Regression
• If the pupil does not provide the correct response to a skill until the third time they are asked, or
fails to give a correct response at all and is shown the correct answer, this is taken to indicate
that the pupil is having difficulty with the skill.
• The pupil is offered a second attempt at the ‘difficult skill’, and if they still have difficulties, they
are regressed to an earlier skill. This forces the pupil to revise an earlier skill, chosen to provide
help and support for the skill that caused the difficulty. It also moves the pupil back to a skill
that they have almost certainly succeeded at before, thus giving the general impression to the
pupil that he or she is successful most of the time.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 21 of 22

• When the pupil has succeeded in answering the revision skill successfully a number of times,
they return to the skill they struggled with earlier. If they continue to fail, the regression cycle
above repeats.
Success and motivation
• More able pupils get more activities correct and progress on to new material faster.
• Less able pupils make mistakes and progress more slowly. However, when they make mistakes
they regress to supportive material they have already tackled which they are more likely to get
right.
• The net result is that all pupils achieve a fairly similar ‘success rate’ in terms of the percentage of
activities that they get correct in a session. This maintains the motivation for pupils of all ability
levels, especially at the lower ability levels because they see themselves as succeeding, while
being unaware of how quickly or slowly they are progressing in real terms.
Problem skills
• If the pupil continues to have difficulty with a particular activity, it is flagged as a ‘problem skill’
in the Teacher dashboard, and the program moves the pupil on to the next skill in the topic.
• At the start of each new session, the program determines whether any of the problem skills are
more than a month old. If they are, a maximum of two of these problem skills will be presented
to the pupil before reverting to normal activities. It is hoped that during the previous month,
either through use of the program or through targeted classroom teaching, the pupil has
progressed sufficiently in order to complete these skills successfully.
• If some targeted teaching has been offered, a teacher may want to re-test a pupil sooner than
after 30 days. Teachers can set a pupil to be re-tested on a problem skill at the start of their next
session by clicking on ‘Retest selected’ on the ‘Problem Skills’ screen in the Teacher dashboard.
• The pupil is automatically re-tested monthly on each problem skill from the date the skill is
flagged until they succeed and it is no longer a problem. The attainment criterion of the skill
controls the number of times the pupil has to get the skill right first time, before the system is
satisfied that they have attained the skill.
Adobe® Flash® Player is a trademark of Adobe®.
RM Easimaths is a trademark of RM Education Plc in the UK.
Copyright © RM Education Plc 2012. All rights reserved.
© RM Education Plc 2012 Page 22 of 22