DD (Year 8) really cannot do maths - what happens?

I agree with a suggestion above about getting a primary school level maths teacher. GCSE level 1/2 is primary school level. Trying to teach her secondary school level maths if she hasn't got even the basics will achieve nothing. She needs to go back a few years and build up skills/confidence at a much lower level, get her to a plateau with the basics and then you can start to build up again. Sounds daft, but are there any 11+ tutors in your area - such a tutor is more likely to have substantial experience working at more basic levels such as times tables, negative numbers, basic fractions, very basic algebra, and logic solving etc.

Not logo board, lego board (makes much more sense now).

Teen said* If you are thinking on increasing the tutor's hours, and can afford it, I would do it sooner rather than later.*

I would absolutely recommend you do this. If your DD can raise her achievement, her attitude towards maths and everything else is likely to improve. I'm aware it's expensive and you shouldn't have to pay for it. But GCSE maths and English are considered most important.

Another thing I did was to go into school towards the end of year 9 and request that DS was NOT taught by the shockingly bad teacher he had had all that year. The school obliged and the teacher he was given in year 10 was a bit better, but still not great (actually I struggled to accept this person as a maths teacher as they had previously been DS's Spanish teacher...) It was the dozens of 1:1 sessions with the private tutor that turned a predicted fail into a high grade.

My two-penny-worth. (Maths degree and 2 DDs with SpLD who find maths a struggle)

If you are thinking on increasing the tutor's hours, and can afford it, I would do it sooner rather than later. By the time she gets to GCSEs general workload will have increased a lot from y8. The more you can help build the foundations for maths in y8 & y9 the better.

With DD1 I did maths every summer holidays in Ks3 to keep reinforcing and to build skills / confidence. I was lucky, I have the ability to do that and DD1 was willing. I am planning to do likewise with DD2 as long as she needs it.

I agree with TheNumberFaker re concrete->pictorial->symbolic. Anything you can do with real things really helps. I found a logo board helpful for symmetry and coordinates, and obviously coins for basic numeracy (and number lines). Cooking is good for ratios. Shops are good for percentages!

You can't rush things, maths really builds on itself so if the foundations are rocky making progress is really hard. Also confidence to 'have a go' really makes a difference too.

With DD1 we had to keep repeating stuff, but each time we revisited something it took less time for her to grasp it again.

Good luck

My DN had SPLD, undiagnosed. In my country, it's not so advanced to recognise each children's needs. My DSis seeked out every opportunity to find a good tutor for him.In my native country, every child takes entrance exam for high school(16+), so he spent last year of his Junior High literally in the tutor's house after school. He made a massive progress and passed exam to school he wanted to go.
My Dsis and my BIL were both very academic, but not good teacher.
So, my conclusion to this is to find good tutor who understand your dd's problem and can help.

DD2 is dyslexic and not great at maths. I got her a tutor and she scraped a low pass in GCSE. I have serious dyscalculia and can't even count correctly on a calculator at times. If your DD is getting on well with the TA and tutor, that should give her a pretty good shot at the exam.

My problem is that I cannot retain how to do the various different calculations if I am not doing them all the time. That didn't help during exams and I have no maths qualifications at all and that includes arithmetic, yet I can still recite times tables. Good luck.

You said the school is highly academic. Would she not be more suited to a private or state school that caters for all abilities?

Wow Molly! That is amazing progress. Concrete > Pictoral>Symbolic might help: use things to do the operation first, once they are happy with that, then move on to pictures and only then with numbers.

Sorry, but it sounds like the maths teacher isn't very good if he can't take the level down low enough for your DD. With maths it really is a case of working out where the pupils are at and building on from their knowledge. Provided your DD has a good attitude, there's no excuse for not being able to teach her.

One of my DCs is dyslexic and had a series of mediocre and downright awful maths teachers at school from year 5 to 10 - that's a long time! At Xmas in year 10 we realized he was not going to pass GCSE. So we engaged a tutor for an hour each week for the rest of year 10 and all of year 11. He had to take the level right down at first, but taught in a direct, logical way that was quite different to the airy fairy way of the school. After a year and a half of being tutored, he was rewarded with an A at GCSE.

Are you able to continue with/increase the tutor hours? And just a thought... maybe try a primary school teacher as a tutor? Good luck :-)

My dd is dyscalculic but if she is given a calculator and / or a table square she can actually do maths. She finds arithmetic much more difficult than maths (algebra / geometry etc) which is weird to me!
Can you go over the maths done at school on a daily basis? I have found this really helps my dd - I can explain how to do things in several different ways and she usually gets it eventually.
Also - dd is allowed to use a calculator in exams even in non calculator papers because she has dyscalculia. Would this make a difference? She is also taken into a different class with a scribe for exams and gets extra time which all helps hugely.

Does she have dyscaclulia? What support is in place for her dyslexia?