Viewing 19 posts - 1 through 19 (of 19 total)
  • Helping children with maths
  • Richie_B
    Full Member

    This is going to sound like a pushy parent or having a go at teacher but its neither. I’m just trying to help my son out.

    My son is pretty good at maths but not particularly confident (he’s predicted GCSE grade couldn’t be improved but its based on year 6 SATs which he found relatively staight forward. He is prone to panicking rather than think things out).

    At primary school he had a brilliant teacher who managed to convince him that he could do it and with that confidence he took off. During year seven he had a maths teacher who comes across as an actor playing the part of a teacher (He dresses the part can talk the talk but the kids don’t seem to learn anything), despite struggling I managed to help my son (teach him the stuff they were supposed to have covered) and he stayed in the upper sets. Year eight was great he had two really good teachers and everything stayed on track. He’s just found out that he has the first teacher for year nine and is already worrying.

    What I’m asking is how can I help him out during this year? We got a couple of key stage 3 work books but these only go so far and don’t seem to relate directly to the syllabus they are following (which seem loosely to be a bit of KS3 and a bit of the Edexcel GCSE syllabus). I’m pretty confident with maths up to A level standard but I’m conscious that how things are taught have changed so I don’t want to confuse things. Funds won’t stretch to extra lessons by someone better qualified. The school uses a computer system for homework but this is pretty hopeless if the teacher hasn’t covered the basics in a way the kids understand.

    As I said I’m not being pushy, I’m just trying to avoid a predicable car crash.

    I’m also NOT interested in criticising teachers. I grew up in a teaching family so I’m pretty partisan, however this guy is useless (Based on what people in the school have said in private).

    jwh
    Free Member

    I have a similar problem – my wife’s a maths teacher at secondary school but all the processes i use for maths are now ‘out dated’ which means i need to learn the new concepts of how they break things down as our kids will getting to secondary in a years time.

    these are 2 sites which are used quite a bit

    https://pages.sumdog.com/

    https://www.mymaths.co.uk/try-mymaths.html

    One would hope the teacher could point you at online rescourse which they use which will complement what they are doing. If you just do past papers you may find that these will be used in class and then they will be board when they get to them.

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    We’ve just gone through the same thing with our lad – he was making silly mistakes, was nervous in an exam environment and generally wasn’t on top of the syllabus.

    The first thing to do is for you to go through the syllabus yourself and familiarise yourself with the subject areas and the question format for his particular exam board. You can buy the revision guides plus an increasing amount of old papers from the board, and I’d advise you to do this, alongside getting sample questions from all over the web.

    Then just go methodically through it with him, make sure he gets the concepts involved, and start revisiting each topic every month or so to imprint it, because he’ll forget stuff. Then it’s just practice until he can fly through the papers.

    He just got an 8 and a B in further. Very proud of him.

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    miketually
    Free Member

    Might also be worth looking at https://www.senecalearning.com/ and the BBC Bitesize (https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zqhs34j) stuff.

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    My daughters the same..perfectly capable when she applies herself but lacks confidence. She uses an online thing called Hegarty maths. Not sure if its just something the school uses or available to anyone out there but it’s great. Takes them through step by step with progressive problems then a test at the end to highlight where they need to do some more practice. The wife or i will usually sit with her to kick things off and take her through the first few exercises but after getting a few of the questions correct her confidence grows and we leave her to it.

    Richie_B
    Full Member

    Fantastic. Thanks I’ll check out the websites.

    TiRed
    Full Member

    A mathematician writes…

    Does he play an instrument? Once past the basic concepts (and you think he gets those), maths is a practical skill, just like playing music or riding a bike. It’s also a perishable skill, so you need to keep up the practice. It’s the practice that makes the performance. Confidence is gained through practice.

    Inability to do maths is probably as rare as inability to ride a bike.

    Richie_B
    Full Member

    He does play an instrument but again, although he plays well, he isn’t great at breaking down the bits he can’t play into chunks he can practice and improve without help.

    The problem is that this particular teacher seems to be skipping over the basic concepts and doesn’t set enough (any) work for them to do the selves so that he can see what the class do or don’t understand.

    I’m not worried about sitting down and helping him, I’m more worried about filling in the blanks he doesn’t appear to have covered in the way I was taught rather than the way that is taught now which might be a problem further down the line.

    I’ll give the websites mentioned a look through to see whether they help.

    mogrim
    Full Member

    I’m not worried about sitting down and helping him, I’m more worried about filling in the blanks he doesn’t appear to have covered in the way I was taught rather than the way that is taught now which might be a problem further down the line.

    Read through his textbooks before starting to explain – I had the same problem and had to relearn a lot of it before helping my daughter to make sure I was doing it the “right” way.

    bensales
    Free Member

    I think you’re doing the right thing in trying to supplement the school teaching with your own, but in your shoes (I have a lad currently in year 6) I’d be raising my concerns about the teacher’s ability with the school as well. If they don’t get told there’s a problem, they can’t fix it.

    poly
    Free Member

    I’m not worried about sitting down and helping him, I’m more worried about filling in the blanks he doesn’t appear to have covered in the way I was taught rather than the way that is taught now which might be a problem further down the line

    Well if he’s not being taught anything I don’t think you can make it worse by teaching him a method. My observation compared to 30 yrs ago is that they tend to teach different methods to tackle the problem (or perhaps I have just remembered ones that work for me). Using “new” methods should not penalise him, and might actually help.

    In terms of on-line resources BBC Bitsize, provides OK stuff to give both more practice and a different approach. I’d also say that youtube has loads of maths stuff on it which is usually in very digestable chunks and some of it is very good. You still need to have something to practice on but it could easily replace a bad teacher if you know what to search for. Heriot Watt’s Scholar programme, albeit aimed at Scottish qualifications, is very good – but I think the school may need to be registered.

    Richie_B
    Full Member

    Read through his textbooks before starting to explain

    Text books? That would make things far too easy. Sorry this is the state system we are talking about. His first job last year was to tape all the surviving pages (not an exaggeration) back into his French text book, which was the only text book for any subject which he was given. They do use the MyMaths website but as far as I can see it only creates problems to solve rather than explaining the mechanics of what to do.

    As I understand it concerns have been raised frequently in the past without much joy but hopefully as there is a new head of department and headteacher something will change. Unfortunately he is the sort of teacher who can put on a good show so I can imagine inspectors liking him. Its just unfortunate that there doesn’t seem to be any substance or follow up to the show.

    suburbanreuben
    Free Member

    Stop worrying, leave the poor kid alone and let the teachers do their job. It’s very early days and either he “gets” maths or he doesn’t. He’s in the top set so clearly does. Let him get on with it! Your meddling is doing his confidence no favours at all.

    pandhandj
    Free Member

    Mucho arguments in this house…

    Get a tutor in and take a step back. Bitter pill to swallow, but it worked. My daughter and I are on talking terms again!

    fancypants
    Free Member

    Have a look at this, The Founder did a great Ted Talk a few years ago and they have a trial in California using their methods in school, which is apparently doing well.

    https://www.khanacademy.org/

    Cletus
    Free Member

    +1 Hegarty Maths

    My daughter’s school give pupils a subscription to it and it is excellent – great explanations and exercises.

    Richie_B
    Full Member

    Stop worrying, leave the poor kid alone and let the teachers do their job. It’s very early days and either he “gets” maths or he doesn’t. He’s in the top set so clearly does. Let him get on with it! Your meddling is doing his confidence no favours at all.

    As you say it’s early days, it’s currently possible to get by without understanding what you are doing, however unless he understands what he’s doing now they can’t build on it later. This particular teachers stock response to questions seems to be to take the p*** so they don’t ask questions. This is what is crushing his confidence. The old management seemed to know they had a problem but relied on the skill of other members of the department in subsequent years. Hopefully things will change.

    I’m trying to help him out because he is asking me to. Since when has that become meddling?

    bensales
    Free Member

    This particular teachers stock response to questions seems to be to take the p*** so they don’t ask questions. This is what is crushing his confidence.

    Really? I honestly think you should be having a very direct conversation with the teacher and the head of department.

    gauss1777
    Free Member

    A few ideas, apologies if they’re not what you are looking for. In your shoes I would:
    – not worry too much about what maths he is doing in school unless there is a topic he is struggling with. If so, YouTube has a lot of videos talking you through how to tackle specific skills. Eg finding a length using Pythagoras, an angle using Trig etc.
    – instead of giving him maths to do, since your maths is quite strong, doing it together, there is little that is more fun and satisfying than doing maths – if it’s the right maths.
    – I think the website Median by Don Steward is absolutely fantastic and quite unique. Lots of problems and exercises that promote thinking and fluency in maths. Just pick a topic and then an exercise that looks fun and try them together.

    https://donsteward.blogspot.com/

    Worth a try, good luck.

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