10yr old dd and Maths- worried

[HelenBurns1994]

Hi, please be gentle. Im worried about my 10 Yr old. I want to do SATS practice with her and she is getting 4/50. She panics, she doesnt do well in timed conditions. Her school is not bothered. Im not well educated so I really want the best for her and her future life chances. I don't want her to be in bottom set in Secondary school. I work full time and then I go through the Maths with her. She makes such silly mistakes and when I point them out she either cries or says "Oh yes.." I'm at my wits end. I bought Bond online but its not timed so she will sit for ages doing it. Can anyone give me some constructive advice.

If you feel like this is a trivial issue, that's your perogative but Im only interested in how I can help my little girl without crushing her confidence. I need to fill in the gaps at KS2 so she is at an advantage when she goes to secondary school.

Thank you so much in advance.
Worried Mum

Op can you afford a tutor ?

Don't worry about timing.
Sit with her, get her to slowly and carefully read the questions and tell you what she needs to do.
Then see if she can do it.

Maybe go back and look at y4 work books, build confidence. Maths is a lot about confidence.

@IsthataYes no I can't. Thank you for reaching out. Xx

@TeenToTwenties Thank you so much. I will do that. I don't think she is ready for timed independent tests.

Thank you both. I feel really tearful that she only has me to help her...poor mite.

Can you convince her that it doesn’t matter at all if she doesn’t finish? Just go as slowly as she wants to, and answering the first few questions as well as she can is the best way to go.

Edit - I agree with @TeenToTwenties ‘ first paragraph, too.

Does she know times tables and number bonds. Does she understand exchanging with regards to addition and subtraction?

Start further back e.g. year 3. The SATs assess the whole of KS2 and if she's scoring 4/50 then she's got gaps much further back than Y6. It'll boost her confidence if you start with Y3 and it'll help close gaps.

Ask school for more support why is this a suprise now if she's struggling in maths they should have told you long ago and put support on
I found a very cheap maths tutor for my DD who was amazing

If you cant help her can you also ask about local teens who have done well at a level who want to learn to teach ?I tube is very good for explaining how to do stuff as well.

@Hoodlumboodlum yes it sounds like so much has been missed what on earth have the shool.been doing ??

I would print off old SATs papers and do the questions together. Not as a test, but ask her how she would do each question and gently prompt her ask you go. Make notes of her weakest points. Talk to the school too, they will be doing practice papers - ask them what you can do at home to support her.

The mark needed to get 100 on the standardised score is surprisingly low, usually just over 50% of the marks.

You can get workbooks that are in line with key stages, you can get them in Waterstones, Amazon etc. Do you use those? I'm in Scotland so had to research a bit more to find workbooks that line up with the Scottish curriculum but you may be able to find equivalents. The ones we have also have explanations, often unnecessarily wordy but while I'm shit at maths I am ok at condensing explanations into more understandable chunks so you may be able to help her in ways you don't know yet.

Don't pressure her, as others have said just go slowly. And always revise what she does know.

Edit: also anything you can get your hands on to encourage times tables as they're so key. We had a little board that had little cubes, we also had an abacus, a wall poster - just anything that will make the times tables part of her everyday life. We also made a game out of it and if we were walking somewhere I would fire times tables questions at her. Her favourite was seeing how quickly she could answer the ones timesed by themselves eg 7x7, 5x5. She's the same age as your DD and still enjoys this sometimes, I make a point of doing it to embed it in her brain.

You can't assume this is the school's fault. Some children are excellent at masking that everything is fine and copy off friends without anyone seeing. Also we don't know that the school haven't put interventions in place. Without the info it's not fair to make assumptions about the school being poor. They might be but they might not be.

Also please note the sets in secondary school are not set in stone. My son is in year 8 and they have had several assessments already and will move kids into more suitable sets based on those. So even if she struggles with her SATS and is put in a lower set it's not the end of the world.

Focus on improving her arithmetic skills. Start with adding and subtracting, then multiplying, then division. There are lots of good YouTube videos that will talk you through the methods. Buy some work books, start at yr 4 and see how she does.
Times tables are useful also, does her school not have TT rockstars or similar.
After that, place value understanding is fundamental. I’m very surprised that school is not concerned. Their SATS results are important to them.

I was 100% about to say the same thing. I'm an ex teacher and former primary tutor. Lots of children in Y5/6 have gaps from lower primary. Definitely not a waste of time to make sure she has these skills before you try her with SATS questions.

BBC Bitesize is free and has lots of good activities to try. Start with place value and work your way through.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zdtwnk7

Work through a page or two together each evening. No tests yet, no timing. Chocolate biscuits helps. Her confidence will grow. Leave the tests packs until next February onwards.

Place value needs to come before calculations.

If she’s getting 4/50 then you need to start a long way back.

begin with addition. Start with addition to ten, and then a hundred. Then work on column addition. The kumon books are good practice for this. Start with this one.

https://amzn.eu/d/fsceoFK

do a page a day.

after a couple of weeks introduce subtraction. Check she can do subtractions below 10 (eg 9-3).
then look at subtractions below 100.

the column method for subtraction is more complicated so I’d suggest getting the Kumon book and working through it, doing maybe five pages of the subtraction book to 1 page of the addition book (just to keep the addition knowledge in there)

https://amzn.eu/d/0u1RMPf

after about a month add into the mix the Schofield and sims mental arithmetic books. These come at six different levels and cover a wide variety of topics.

so by this point in a week of seven days I’d do one of addition, four of subtraction and two of the Schofield and sims.

they start at introductory book and go up to book 6.

https://amzn.eu/d/6afDkK8

thst’ll be a good start.

Sorry, should have said to use the CGP books to work through.

We don't have SATS here but my dd is 9. I printed off the maths syllabus starting from year 1. We then worked through them, each year they build on concepts they have learnt from the previous years so we started from the very beginning so things like number bonds to 10 whilst walking from school, then to twenty, thirty up to 100. After that subtraction. We did 5 minutes of mental maths in the morning and evening. We then worked on column addition, subtraction, 2x,5x and 10x table. After that we did the others up to 12. Again 10 minutes practice a day and then quick fire questions. My dd would read them over and over, sing, sometimes write them, whatever she found easier. Then we looked at sharing and division. After that telling the time, shapes and symmetry, angles etc. We do little but often every day. My dd's confidence is improving, she can see patterns now and is able to talk through how she solves problems. We still need to work on counting change etc and it will never be her favourite subject but she isn't afraid of it anymore. I use timetables rockstars, ask school as they might have a log in for it. We also use topmarks for timed practice. The CGP books are a good resource. I would also speak to school about other resources they use.

Let her go slowly and understand what she is doing, once she is competent is the time for trying to go faster, pointless going fast and getting everything wrong. The important thing is to really learn and understand how to do the maths so she can move on to more difficult things competently later.

Also, maybe explain she doesn't need to finish the paper (whatever the teacher says). I used to say the end questions were the 'Jack and Courtney questions' (they were the best in the class at maths). It took the pressure off rushing.

Lots of games will help. Times Table rockstars and Hit the button will improve tables and number bonds and basic maths quickly. Focus on getting the basics correct and then there are firm foundations for the rest.
The arithmetic paper is the one where those who are less able at maths need to score the majority of their marks. Fractions and percentages are a large proportion of the test as they know children find these difficult. Leave the long division and come back to it if you have finished all the other questions. They are time consuming and you could be picking up more I mark questions in the time they take.
If they can eventually get to be scoring 30-35 marks on that they can afford to score roughly 10-13 on each reasoning paper and still be working at standard. Sats are not a pass/fail they are a working at standard or not test.

Agree with PP - it's vastly more important that she reads the question carefully and answers it as best she can, than to rush through to finish the paper. She is only 10 and there's still a world of difference in development and understanding at this age.

I'd suggest mathsfactor fo fill in any gaps - they do a winter school near dec - but BBC site is free and also had a lot.

My kids did well with mathsfactor especially if they were confused on a topic -- clear expliation they could do several times, worked example - it let me know if they were struggling - and then slowly built up.

As a side issue - my child has dyslexia and as well as problems with spelling, it has manifested as difficulties with maths. Child was able to learn to read to a good standard, although it took longer than some of child's peers. Just something to consider if despite support, difficulties persist.