Maths homework

[ActuallyMyNamesMarina]

I am a bit cross/peeved, but AIBU? DD is in yr4, her maths homework last week was designed to develop the relationship between multiplication and division. Fine, no probs with that She is good with numbers and grasps concepts quickly and easily, so after completing the homework (took less than 5 minutes)we looked at squared numbers and square roots, eg 7, 8 and 9 squared and their square roots, which are in essence, division and multiplication. If you know one, you know the other. Was told by class teacher that using squared numbers and square roots is not related to multiplication and division and doesn't help cement the relationship so not to do it.

Well I'm confused - what is 8 x8 it is 64, does it mnatter if I say 8 squared or 8 x 8, the result is the same. AIBU to think this is daft and that schools should encourage children and parents to develop ideas and introduce new concepts or do I just walk away and leave them to it?

Will be discussing this at parents evening next week, just needed to rant,and get it off my chest.

Last time I looked squares and square roots were multiplication and division - unless everything is radically altered nowadays.

Mind you - I'm a secondary teacher and when I done class cover in Maths (not my subject) if there's been a teacher off sick, I've noticed the pupils seem to be taught in a different way.
I found myself trying to explain long division to a pupil who said they didn't do it that way .

Must be my age!

SAF - yes she understands, I'm not some crazy hothousing pushy mum who thinks her child is a genius - she asked about the concepts after finding her brothers old GSCE maths books and wondered what the symbols meant.

It just makes me cross and sad that schools don't seem able to let children learn at a pace that suits them.

"when I done class cover in Maths"

When I've done - obviously.

Genuine typo - honest!!

Nope, all they need is to pass a test similar to GCSEs and some of them find it pretty difficult.

Mind you, they're supposed to know a bit about everything and like kids and want to be there and we've got to fill schools with people like that up and down the country, so it's not too surprising that a lot of them aren't comfortable with maths.

Ridiculous of teacher to say don't do it about extra stuff, though - I really don't like that attitude. Not sure you'll gain anything by making the teacher more insecure about it, though?

Well I taught squares and roots to DSs as part of multiplicaton and division. Its part of the fun of times tables anyway looking at the squared numbers on the diagonal.

Teacher is wrong.

Wouldn't it be nice if all children could learn at their own pace? I think we'd need much smaller class sizes to allow for the individual attention, though.

...and have a degree and a post grad. teaching qualification!

I teach squares and square roots at primary, those that struggle with the idea get to use multilink and such to make squares and see the relationships.
Teacher sounds uncertain herself, but to be honest, methods of teaching maths have been so mucked about with over the last couple of decades I bet she's not the only totally confused teacher out there.

I specialised in Chaucer and middle English, so that buggers up the spelling.

What is a non-academic degree, exactly?

Maths teacher here. Obviouly sqaure and square root are multiplication and divide but they probably aren't on the primary strategy for this topic. The teacher isn't a maths specialist and got confused as her linear scheme of work doesn't do squares next! Bless her! Of course it is great what you are doing, Maths has links all over the place in random directions.

I understand the point she may have been trying to make. I had one parent trying to teach their year 7, level 4 child trigonometry. It was well meant and not any real harm but there were much better things to have focused on. Any maths done at home with parents is fabulous.

I wish more Y9 pupils got squares and square roots!

Y4 teacher here. I am not a maths specialist but that doesn't prevent me from teaching it or, shock horror, from teaching things that don't appear in the Y4 part of the 'framework'. I both teach and expect 'my' 9-year-olds to know and understand, square numbers and square roots.

Continue to support and extend your DD at home. If she's enjoying learning about square numbers then it makes as much sense as building Lego models with a child who enjoys that.

Another Secondary maths teacher here - it's fab you are extending your child in what they are interested in, I would ignore their teacher, unfortunately there are a few primary teachers not confident in maths - I would be the same at having to teach English and Art to be honest! (Hence secondary)

I would recommend the Rob Eastaway book, Maths for Mums and Dads, I've seen him live and he's brilliant at putting maths into kids speak and explaining the methods to parents.

Also seen Johnny Ball who was amazing!!!!

Square rooting, look at adding consecutive odd numbers, i.e root of 4 (2 odd numbers 1+3), root of 9 (3odd numbers (1+3+5), root of 16 (4 odd numbers 1+3+5+7) and so on...

Maths is cool!!!! [geek emoticon]

Thank you all for your positive and helpful comments, I feel better about it now, did wonder if I was being precious. wIll definitely discuss at parents evening.