Ask your neighbour explain it to - maths GCSE

[ShouldersBackChestOutChinUp]

Dd is ding maths GCSE. First year of her course.

She was in bottom set, doing really well, predicted a 7.

She's been moved up to middle set which she hates and now her work is suffering.

She says she doesn't understand how the new teacher explains things to her. The teacher tells her to ask her neighbour to explain it to her.

To me this is weird. How does the teacher know the neighbouring student has got it right?

Shouldn't the neighbour be working on her own maths work?

Is t it the teacher's job to explain? Over and over if need be?

My dd doesn't understand. She's asked for help. She's not getting the help she needs to reach understanding.

Therefore fellow students "teaching" her isn't working.

You said the issue was that she was told to ask her fellow students for help.

However, this is fine.

If, having done this and all the other stuff and still doesn’t understand, she should then ask the teacher for help.

You have not said this is what’s happening.

She has done all this. Her neighbour doesn't understand. Dd doesn't understand and every class, she is simply told to ask her neighbour. It's silly.

The teacher should teach. Concept check. Exercises to consolidate. Supply Further more challenging exercises. And so on.

The teacher is not checking that dd or her neighbour has grasped what they need to know.

How is asking another person teaching any independence? Another unqualified person.

Yes, I know how to teach.

If neither the neighbour nor her understand, then they should ask the teacher for help. If she is told to ask the neighbour she then explains that the neighbour doesn’t get it either.

The problem isn’t asking the neighbour. Kids are perfectly capable of understanding something and explaining it to their partner. It goes on all the time in maths classrooms. Suggesting that they are ‘unqualified’ so can’t explain even if they understand it is just wrong.

That’s not the problem here.

I hire a plumber and expect them to do the job. Not ask an untrained, unpaid student to do the work for them.

The student is not the assistant, the student is the job.

If your daughter is struggling with maths, speak to the teacher but if you listen to them as poorly as to those who have explained why you are mistaken on this thread you won't get very far.

Are you talking about maths here? How many lessons go by, or how much of each maths lesson, with no teacher there? What are the teachers doing? I did Pure & Applied Maths at A-level & the teacher was full-time. I passed. But I remember a friend being utterly failed by her school, who didn't bother having a teacher there for her maths O-level. She did not pass it.

You're reminding me of seeing on TV two young teachers discussing some style of teaching (decades ago): one said, "Of course, we don't want to actually teach the children anything," to which the other one went, "Oh no, no, no". Thin end of the wedge?

How many lessons go by, or how much of each maths lesson, with no teacher there?

None. But for each hour spent in the classroom with the teacher, sixth formers are expected to spend at least another hour doing independent study outside of the classroom without the teacher there.

Isn't that just homework?

Do you hire a plumber and then tell them they are doing it wrong? When you go to the doctor do you argue over the diagnosis?

There are good plumbers & bad plumbers, good teachers & bad teachers...

Some of it is. Some of it will be going back over stuff they need more practice on. They figure out what they need to do for that.

Neither of which the teacher is present for.

YANBU-ish. The teacher doesn't have time, but certainly shouldn't be fobbing it off on another pupil. If that pupil is done she should be set extension work, not used as a teaching assistant. The teacher needs to move on and can't hold the class back to explain it however many times needed. The teachers job is to teach to the average. Not to each individual child. Sucks but that is the reality.
Talk to the head.I think here the solution is either she moves class or if you can afford, get her a maths tutor to keep up with the class. It is only in tutoring you can expect that 1 to 1 attention.

Sounds like she had a better teacher in bottom set. If she understood that teachers way of explaining I'd be asking for her to go back down. At my son's school the teacher of the second set was a better teacher at explaining concepts and his class out scored the top set in GCSE exams.

@Blahblahaha
yes, Five Bs is definitely used in independent schools too. Educational aim of it is to foster independence and to not encourage spoon-feeding. It obviously has to be used carefully and should be part of an overall pedagogical strategy, not just ‘laziness’ !! 😊@ShouldersBackChestOutChinUp

However, if you feel your DD is not learning, can you contact the teacher? Sorry, haven’t RTFT. PLEASE 🙏 contact the class teacher first as he/she/they may have a great approach and explanation but if not, state your concerns, adaptations should be made and if not escalate to HoD or HoY if needed.. I am saying this as I think it is polite and reasonable to talk to class teacher first.

Hope it improves for your DD.

@donquixotedelamancha my dd doesn't understand what her neighbour is telling her. She says the neighbour isn't always sure. The teacher isn't helping. My dd is lost and is asking for help which she isn't getting.

Is that tricky to understand??

@caringcarer I've asked for her to be moved back to bottom set. She was blooming there but says it was a bit slow paced.

It's weird though. When she did those CAT4+ tests, the school took her out of bottom set maths and put her in top set. She couldn't cope at all with how advanced it was and asked to be put back into bottom set. So she's sampled every set! 😁

I've emailed the teacher asking for a chat about her decline in maths.

There are lots of excellent maths tutorials on youtube, might be worth your daughter having a look, just to boost her confidence.

"Do they use this in private schools"? Well I can't speak for every teacher in every school but yes, I do up to a point. Not maths, but I do encourage the kids to ask each other how they solved X or where on the page the info is. Kids do "badger" teachers, because a lot of them are so anti-reading now that casting an eye over 3 paragraphs is far too difficult. I will always, always answer a question of genuine need, in fact a stock phrase of mine when they start to ask and then say "oh never mind" is "that's what I'm paid for, what do you need?" but when its idiotic nonsense like the date, title or page number that is on the board and has repeated 6 times, no.
It is a legitimate learning technique, for both parties, but yes it can be misused to the detriment of the more able, but to some extent it is a reality of teaching in 2022 that 1 teacher cannot give individual tailored answers to 32 kids in 50 mins and of necessity, other techniques might be used.

This teacher may not be very good at explaining things. Teachers vary, some are not great. The pupil next to her may well not be good explaining things. Might it help for her to move seats?

Some pupils don't try. They don't grasp something immediately and, instead of having a go, trying to work through it or and identify the problem, they sit there with their hand up, doing no maths at all, chanting 'miss, miss, miss, miss, miss!'

What I'm finding interesting here, is reading a parent saying 'my dd doesn't understand the teacher's explanation in maths, I think her first recourse should be to demand one-to-one attention from the teacher', while at the same time saying 'my dd doesn't understand something in maths, I think my first recourse should be to demand one-to-one attention from the teacher'... while simultaneously allowing all other perspectives and (very good) explanations to flow past her, barely acknowledged.

Maybe the teacher thought that by asking her neighbour they may work it out together, look back over the examples they must have done at some point rather than just give her the answer. Yes teachers are there to teach but she is not the only child in class and with the higher paper it will be very challenging for a child achieving a grade 6 so maybe that is where the teacher is concentrating their efforts right now. Anything your DD doesn't understand in class she can look up when she gets home. My son's school use Hegarty maths, there are videos on YouTube walking you through concepts. It would seem that the child your DD sits next to has not told the teacher that they too don't understand it. I would wait to hear the teacher's side of this situation too.

Both my children have done peer teaching in class and for Ds1 in free periods in sixth form and yes for maths. Ds1 said is benefited him greatly because it cemented his knowledge and his friend said Ds had a way of explaining it that was different to the teacher.

I think asking / discussing with the person next to you is fine, provided that if that fails the teacher is available.

A teacher has say 25 in the class.
If 5 pupils are stuck differently, the teacher can only help one at a time. So the other 4 either sit twiddling their thumbs or should try other strategies such as discussing with their neighbour.

But it is all about balance of course.

@lottiegarbanzo where did I say my dd should demand one to one attention f from the teacher? Demand? Interesting fiction there.

However, it is the teacher's job to make sure her all class members all understand what she is communicating. Otherwise they're not learning.

Dd asks for help. She's told to ask her neighbour. The neighbour sometimes gets it. Sometimes she doesn't. Dd asks for help again. She doesn't get it because she and her neighbour should have worked it out.

It's all very well teaching independence and trying to avoid spoon feeding but when the essence of a topic isn't understood in the first place the. It's hard for students to progress.

Get her on Khan Academy online. It got my Dd through maths GCSE.

I was the helper child in physics. Teacher knew I was helping my neighbour and praised me for it quietly. It was quite annoying sometimes but I actually like helping so that's ok.

What matters here is that your child isn't understanding. Definitely worth bringing up with the teacher.

It didn't help me much when I could have gone on to the extension questions were it not for teaching the others on my table. And no bugger was there to help me when I didn't understand something.