About Us
Dr. Rosemary Russell - Short CV
Born in Calcutta, India, Rosemary came to England with her parents aged 6. Gaining an Honours degree in Pure Mathematics, Probability and Statistics and a PGCE from the University of Sheffield, she taught in London, and then moved to Dorset. She took a career break from teaching to run a small fashion business when her children were young. Her dabble in the business world gave her valuable insights as to how those outside education view what goes on in school.
The things parents said to her in that time led her to write her first book, Maths for Parents (Piccadilly, 1996). This led to the invitation and encouragement from Dr. Bob Burn (then at the University of Exeter) to do research in the field of parents helping their children with mathematics, which ultimately led to Rosemary being awarded a PhD from the University of Bristol in 2002, with Professor Martin Hughes as her supervisor.
Rosemary is now focusing on her writing and consultancy work, running her Maths for Parents course and giving author talks. (See Blog).
Rosemary was a member of the Parental Engagement Expert Group for National Numeracy. She is also a National Numeracy Challenge Champion, encouraging others to use the Challenge Online to improve their numeracy.
Rosemary's books draw upon her wide experience of teaching maths to both adults and children, and insights from her PhD.
Rosemary’s latest book, Help Your Child Do Maths Even If You Don’t was published on 1 September 2020. It shows how any parent can help give their child a ‘can do’ attitude to maths. It is recommended by National Numeracy. Rosemary has been giving author talks via Zoom about her latest book. If you would like to know more about these, please contact her directly through the website
Her Help Your Child with Numeracy Ages 3-7 was published on 7 June 2007, and the next in the series, Help Your Child with Numeracy Ages 7-11 was published on 15 April 2009. They are recommended by National Numeracy.
Both these books look into the methods used to teach maths in some schools.
Rosemary spoke on the topic of Parenting for Mathematical Resilience, at the Mathematical Resilience Conference, hosted by The University of Warwick, March 4th-6th 2016. (Mathematical Resilience). She also spoke, along with Dr Janet Goodall, on the topic of Parenting for Mathematical Resilience, at the Mathematical Resilience – making it happen, The Shard Symposium, held at The Shard, in London, 16th Jan 2015. (Mathematical Resilience).
If you would like to know more about Rosemary’s research, please contact her directly through this website.
Rosemary jointly wrote the chapter ‘The Emotions Experienced While Learning Mathematics at Home’ with Dr Janet Goodall (University of Bath) and Sue Johnston-Wilder (Associate Professor, University of Warwick) in the book, Understanding Emotions in Mathematical Thinking and Learning (2017 Elsevier Academic Press).
Rosemary has had several articles published in various publications, academic as well as popular. For example, she had an article published in May 2013, Issue 234, of Mathematics Teaching, the Journal of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics (See pdf: here).
She had a Comment article published in The Independent, 10 May 2007.
Previous to her work with Continuum, Rosemary had two books published by Piccadilly Press, Maths for Parents (1996), which was given good reviews in several diverse publications such as Family Circle and TES, and IT for Parents (1996), which was once again well received in diverse publications such as Sainsbury's Magazine and Guardian Education. She has written several articles on parental involvement in maths education in various places, such as The Times, Guardian Education, TES, and Parentwise. She was involved in the BBC's Year 2000 Numeracy Campaign, appearing with Patsy Palmer, and has also had several radio interviews.
Rosemary's PhD was awarded from the University of Bristol in 2002, and conferred in 2003.
For more information on her publications to date please see Rosemary Russell's publications to date.