Just a heads up really. Maths teaching in Primary schools appears to be woefully inadequate these days. Throughout my son's years in primary school (rated exceptional), I constantly queried the low level of maths being taught even though my son was always on the "top table". Even in years 5 and 6, they were still languishing with number lines, the grid method for multiplication and division by using subtraction. No sign whatsoever of long multiplication and long division that I clearly remember doing in my primary school many years ago, nor basic algebra either. At parents evenings, was always told that these were the new methods and far better, teachers had no concerns with my son, and he left at year 6 with a 6 in his maths SATS, so we accepted what we were told. When I asked why long multiplication and long division weren't being taught, I was told by different teachers that it's no longer necessary at Primary level.
He's now just completed his second year at secondary school, and has suffered a painfully low score (under 50%) in his end of year maths tests. This is despite a 95% score in the year 1 secondary end of year test, and 80% plus in all other subjects end of year tests. Obviously, I've spoken to the teacher about what has gone wrong, who has told me that my son has grasped all the new subject material taught this year, his workings are sound, but has lost marks in virtually every area on the test because of an inability to do basic number crunching, in particular, anything that required multiplication or division beyond simple small numbers. The teacher said that this is very common as there's a "gap" between the relatively low standard at primary school (even to level 5/6 SATS) and the expected level at the start of secondary. Basically, at primary, they're only working with small numbers, ie typically multiplies of 1-10, so barely ever get answers of over 100, yet at secondary, numbers are often in the hundreds or thousands. With smaller numbers, it's easy for kids to guess or use workarounds to find an answer but they can't do that when the numbers are bigger.
Good thing is that this has now been identified and I can rectify the problem by doing lots of drills over the Summer, so he should start back in September fully competent in these basics. Such a shame that the teachers don't actually tackle the issue - primary teachers clearly don't think it's their job, nor do the secondary teachers.
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Primary education
Primary Maths teaching inadequate for secondary
44 replies
kazh50 · 26/06/2015 11:37
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