Year 8 at grammar school struggling with algebra, what helped your child?

[Elevenseconds]

DD13 is at a grammar school and did very well (objectively) in the maths part of the 11+. Her mental maths has always been exceptional, and she didn't really struggle much in Y7 maths - no longer top of the form, but to be expected in a more competitive environment.

In Y8 things seem to have gone totally to pot. She is struggling with algebra massively. I can explain concepts to her (e.g. the nth term) and she will get the hang of it - but two days later she's forgotten it again. It's too conceptual for her.

She's doing quite badly in her homework (averaging 50%). The school run a Maths Club, but she won't attend voluntarily because it's also where they send kids who don't do their homework, and she's very diligent and would feel it was a punishment. (And to be fair, she's 13 and wants to hang out with her friends, not spend more time on her least favourite subject.)

I think it's just moving too quickly for her. She is generally not struggling at grammar - of course she has her stronger and weaker subjects but she is a mid-high performer across all other subjects.

Maths is also not my strong suit, and the trickier questions she gets are now beyond my reach. My 1996 B grade in GCSE maths was a very long time ago, and I have forgotten the vast majority of what I learned.

I got a friend round last night to show her straight line graphs. DD made all the right noises, was very polite and compliant... and appears to have taken literally nothing in.

I spoke to her Maths teacher in January and said I was concerned - so she's been moved to the front of the class - but I'm not seeing any improvement. DD says they have 3 different maths teachers - and one of them is an ECT, and DD has blamed the quality of the teaching, but having spent some time with her, I'm confident she is genuinely finding the concepts difficult, regardless of who is explaining them.

We are happy to consider outside tuition if we need to, though I am conscious that she already gets a lot of homework, so I don't want to overload her.

I guess what I'm asking is did your DC struggle with algebra in Y8 - and if so, what helped?

Algebra is a big topic.

You could happily buy a GCSE Foundation tier revision guide which will have all he basics covered (in a revisiony kind of way).

My DDs struggled with maths generally but actually both quite liked algebra.

Solving equations is just like balancing scales, whatever you do to one side you have to do to the other, and it can be helpful to write down what you are doing at each step eg

2y + 5 = 17
(subtract 5)
2y + 5 - 5 = 17 - 5 (you don't need this but it may stop mistakes)
2y = 12
(divide by 2)
y = 12/2
y = 6

nth term at its most basic level is

• the gap becomes the multiplier
• the 0th term because the bit to add or subtract

so 2 7 12 17
gap is 5
the 0th term would be -3
the nth term is therefore 5n-3

Sounds like she needs to go to the booster class though.

Ex maths teacher

it’s not uncommon for students to really struggle with algebra. It’s a big transition and lots who are confident with number don’t make it very easily.

firstly, a good first step is solving what are these days called missing box problems. So this is where you have for example

4 + something = 10

what is the something? (In printed stuff the something is usually a box to write in the answer).

if you google missing box questions you’ll get loads. That’s a good stepping stone to solving equations which basically puts a letter where the box would be.

nth term of sequences is also often a tricky one for students to grasp and understand.

you may find a tutor useful at this point.

Eg this kind of thing for missing box questions

https://primarysite-prod-sorted.s3.amazonaws.com/windsor-hill-primary-school/UploadedDocument/cbb707acc0fa408dbb2cafdd2acd17f1/missing-numbers-addition-1.pdf

She does need to get help, because if she is lost on algebra then she won't be able to do the harder algebra expected later, you need to help her get those foundations secure.
Ideally she goes along to those booster classes and maybe goes back to the beginning of algebra and sees where she got lost.
Or a tutor to sort it out.

I always struggled with X and y (4x, 5y etc) But if you say 4 apples and 5 pears I can process it.

what set is she in?

Does she have access to any online maths tools (dr frost etc)

I always recommend dragonbox algebra app - my children used it lots as it helped with understanding core algebra skills without feeling like homework

dragonbox.com/

My DD is not very strong in maths and is not at a grammar and is doing straight line equations in year 7! I feel a bit better now as we struggled but we got there. I myself use maths for work but her baseline is lower than your DD plus her mental arithmetic is appalling.
She uses Mathswatch for school and their videos are excellent. We started with gradient and looked at ones that go up and ones that go down. Then we worked out what Y would be when X was whatever then moved on to drawing the straight line through the points we'd found.

They do 10 = 4 + ? in primary and she could do those but struggled when we first got to 10= 4+ X. I must try box problems with her.

For us, a mix of bbc bite size, corbett maths and cgp maths books helped. And practice, loads of practice. If she keeps forgetting, she needs to practice daily.

I went to grammar and struggled in maths. My son is now in grammar and maths isn’t his strong suit either, so I tell him what I wish someone had told me - even if you’re ‘bottom of the class’ you’re still ahead of most kids your age, because your class only has the very brightest in it!

Once you’re in it it’s really easy to forget that being in grammar removes the lower 80+ % of abilities from the classroom. I grew ever more unconfident and thought I was really terrible at maths long into adulthood, until I had to do some testing at work and was told my maths was stronger than most of my colleagues.

I am pro grammar, hence why my son is now in it, but it’s important to keep perspective and share that with them. If she does her best and learns at her pace then that’s great

The school has said to parents that there is a top set and the other sets are all equal. The kids say that there's a top set, a bottom set and a middle set. Kids do tend to know where each other is in the pecking order! If this is true, DD is in the middle set. (I think she would do better in a lower set - but as the school doesn't officially have this policy, I can't really bring it up!)

This is exactly - and I mean exactly - how I feel. I was at a very academic private school and was always bottom of the bottom at Maths. I have a very emotional, sweaty reaction (even now!) to maths problems. AND YET, a "B" grade was the lowest grade anyone at my school got, which objectively is bloody brilliant.

But I've never shaken the feeling that I'm "bad at maths" - because it's not something that comes naturally to me, and because I was surrounded by people who went on to do STEM at Oxbridge.

I totally take your point that if DD were at a secondary modern or even comprehensive school, she'd likely be doing absolutely fine. But what I don't want is for her to get so ingrained in the "I'm bad at maths" mentality that she switches off and does end up falling so far behind that she fails GCSE.

This is a good, fun read - maybe too basic for your DD, I don't know - but there are cartoons and jokes

https://ebay.us/m/CcQaRd

I should say as well, she struggles to follow videos which I know sounds like a cop-out, but I also prefer to read instructions and videos make me switch off, so it may be a preferred learning style thing. Thank you everyone for the app recommendations.

I need to find something that balances getting her to do work without it seeming like she's being punished - so the gamified apps might be a place to start if I can negotiate her doing 10 mins a day on them. She's not quite mature enough yet to proactively want to tackle this by sitting down and going through workbooks etc. I suspect as Y10-11 approaches and she realises that passing Maths is the one thing that stands between her joining her friends in the 6th form, her mind might sharpen a bit!

(There's a good chance she could pass (or get pretty close) GCSE maths now).

Algebra is incredibly easy if you know it, but there is actually a lot going on (commutative, distributive, bidmas) behind the scenes.

Also, some pupils just take longer to get cognitively ready for it.

It is always good to go from number to algebra.

e.g 3x(4+5) followed by ax(b+c).

And just do a ton of boring practice! Algebra is like a language; the more you practise, the more fluent you get.

But few year 8s are much good at algebra and it is still a year where younger pupils struggle more than older ones (in general).

Yes it’s totally possible to pass GCSE maths with a grade 4 or even a 5 without any algebra - there isn’t much of it on the foundation paper at all.

obviously you want her to do well so yes, totally worth looking at the apps.

Thank you for this. She's fabulous at the box exercises with a missing number - it's when it becomes more conceptual it is difficult. And I think you've hit the nail on the head. The way I learned was basically to do the same problem with different variables about 20 times.

They don't seem to teach in that way at grammar school - and even MathsWatch ups the difficulty significantly between questions, so she sort of gets the hang of one type of question - but then the next question is something completely different, so she is missing the chance to bed in the knowledge.

Is this true?!

Yes absolutely.

Mathswatch isn’t the best website to use for this to be honest for exactly the reasons you have given.

it’s really aimed at gcse students revising topics rather than ks3 students learning them for the first time.

maybe try dr frost maths which you can set to just give you the same kind of question just different numbers?

Her school requires a 5 or above to stay on for 6th form.

Perhaps I'm overreacting, if she's still got three years to go (in which one would hope her knowledge would increase somewhat!).

I'm just worried as maths - like languages - is cumulative, and I don't want her left behind.

I think she needs to get over her aversion to the maths club and start attending that.

Whilst she does the homework she is getting half of it wrong- so the groups will be very relevant and helpful and would save some of this guessing from you at home.

nth term is GCSE grade 4 or 5 (I forget which).

Honestly have a look at a foundation tier paper or revision guide, you may be surprised at the level given you have an able child.

If she can do percentages, ratios, unit conversions, wordy best buy problems, mean/median/mode, areas of triangles, then she is already along way there.

Remember the pass grade is 4. Your grammar school will probably view a 7 as poor grade.