Mathswatch

[Madz]

Hi has anyone used this?

My daughter has struggled all through primary school with Maths, finally in year 6 the teachers realised she would not pass her SATS without some extra help (which i'd been asking for) and she got 12 hours of booster classes which really helped her and she managed to get her to a level 4 which we were really hapy with (she got level 5's for english and science).

So anyway last september she started secondary and she has just gone downhill again has absolutely no confidence at all and finds it all really hard. (I find it hard to help her either as Maths was my worst subject and it's like a different language to me). The teachers have been brilliant at this school and straight away gave her extra help, sat her on a table with a support teacher so she can always ask questions etc...but despite all this after all her end of year assessments she went down to a level 3!!! So don't know what happened.

Don't know what else to do to help her i've brought her work books and got her on revise wise websites but think it confuses her when she has to read all the questions because she's trying to work out what their actually asking her as well as trying to work out what the actual answer is (hope that makes sense). If i had the money i would get a tutor but i don't!!

So anyway i heard about this mathswatch went on the website and it seems amazing the way they explain it. Yesterday we sat down and she did all the sample questions and she found the way they explained it so much better she said it was the first time she understood! She got all the ansewrs right (which really built her confidence) and she actually found it fun. Even i found it easy to understand, it just made it seem so simple. Was really excited thinking this could really help and that it's only £3 a c.d! Then i read that you have to buy 25 c'd's and that they only sell to schools. Is this right because i've heard of other people that have used this at home so how did they get them? I can't afford to buy 25 at a time and especially if i have to do it every year. Also if i knew it would defietly help i might conider it but don't want to part with so much money if it's not as good as i think it's going to be.

So what i want to know is whether anyone elses child has used this and if it's worth the money and helped? And how they got it?

Sorry if it doesn't make sense i am so tired today! Thank you.

[MrsDoofenshmirtz]

Have never used that but have used Mathletics. IT really helped with fast mental maths. We have only used it for World Maths day though.

[DustDustDust]

I posted about MW on a different thread earlier this week. I think it's great! I did my GCSEs last year, and while I got low marks in my mocks, I got an A after using Mathswatch for a few weeks before the exam. It completely made up for the fact I did no work for the whole two years.

It's like having your own teacher that you can just pause and rewind, and I learnt quicker using it than being taught by my actual teacher.

You could ask the school if they have copies. My teacher had a whole pile of them, and only advertised them less than a month before the final GCSE exams.
If not, I'm pretty sure you could get them on eBay.
The particular CD I used was "the old version" that my teacher was flogging for only £1. It still seemed good, but it's probably a little out of date. If you can't get a CD any other way, feel free to PM me and I'll post it to you for free. If I can find it amongst the pile of rubbish and papers that is my desk. :S

But anyway, I thought it was really good. It went through all the simple stuff right through to the A/A* work. I recommend it.

[Madz]

Thanks for your replies! Will definetly look more into it as it sounds brilliant!

[Madz]

Hi DustDustDust just tried to email you but it said your settings are that people can't email you could you try and email me please as i am really interested in the CD (looked on ebay and can't seem to find any). Would be so grateful if you could send me it (if it's not too much trouble and you can find it) and i'd like to give you my address. Thanks! I will pay the postage if you tell me how much i am so grateful!

[mumblechum]

Hi, my ds brought the CD home last year, in yr 10. It was my thread earlier this week that Dusty was mentioning, I'd kind of forgotten about the CD which the school sold to ds for a few quid, but he's going to start using it a few times a week to improve his grade.

The one we have is for GCSE, so your dd may not be ready for it, but you're welcome to it once ds has taken his GCSE which I think will be May.

If you want it at that time, please contact me in May/June on my business email, [email protected] with your address and I'll post it to you.

[scaryteacher]

Madz - it is entirely usual for a child to get a Level 4 or 5 in the KS2 SATS and then drop a level at secondary. This is because there the secondary levels are different to the KS2 ones. I frequently had students who were supposedly L4 or 5, and they only got a L3 from me in their first assessment. This disconnect needs to be addressed as the Year 7 parents find it hard to understand.

[Madz]

Hi mumblechum

Thank you so much for the offer as well i'll note your email address and then if next year i need to contact you i can. Hope your son does well in his GCSE's!!

[Madz]

Scareyteacher thanks for explaining that. I was really surprised as she'd had all that extra help. Feel a bit better then if it's quite common for this to happen, hopefully she'll start picking up again soon.

[spadeoaktutor]

Hi Madz
The MathsWatch cd is GCSE level and I think you should leave it until your daughter starts her GCSE course. Meanwhile there are some great free resources on the web. Look at this page and //www.mymaths.co.uk - your daughter will need a password and log in from her school but most schools subscribe to it. Good luck.

[DustDustDust]

Yeah, Mathswatch is aimed more at GCSE level, but there's no reason she can't start on the easier stuff now. I recognized some of the maths from it as things we did in Year 7 or 8 and I have the higher disk.

Since my CD is already 'old' then it might be really outdated by the time she does GCSEs, but I figure it'll still be mostly the same maths anyway. If it's not as useful now, it will be later.

I found the CD, so if you email me your address I'll send it along. My email is [email protected]

I might as well pay the postage myself, I doubt it'll be much.

In response to what spadeoaktutor said, I also recommend MyMaths. My own school doesn't have an account, but our rival school had it's password and username on their website so I used that to log in.
It's been changed now unfortunately..

[Carolinemaths]

My suggestions:

Keep filling in your daughter's basic maths skills. Make sure she is confident with her number facts.

Focus at home on reinforcing the work she's forgotten or not understood from the previous year or two. Just take one topic every day and work on it for 10 mins.

Let the school focus on supporting her with the "current" topics, but spend a little time on the weekend (10-20mins) reviewing her current school maths work.

It's a longterm strategy, and you won't necessarily see results straight away, but this slow and steady pace will help not just your daughter's maths ability, but her maths confidence.

I blog about how parents can help support their children's learning, have a look at my blog, you may find other ideas that can help

[mathswatchanswers]

When my daughter needed help with maths we used IXL or Mathswatch. Mathswatch dosen't show the answers so it's not quite as useful as IXL. We found a site for Mathswatch answers that made it easier to follow along, a good study guide for maths in general.
Good luck:)