to think school should teach times tables?

[hwjm1945]

Just found out that DS1 will have times tables quizzes at school but will not be taught tables,apparently we are to teach them at home.is this the norm?seems bizarre to me,why not?

I think education is a joint effort.

dc school does teach them

we teach timestables and my dcs school does- they also ask us to practice at home. As learning tables is really all about practice- then a joint effort is best.

Surely not? Practice times tables at home to consolidate learning maybe, but they form part of the curriculum and I can't see how a school can opt out.

I asked ds to tell me how they were taught so I did not go about helping him with some old style chanting which was out of date,he told me they were not taught at all and I was so sure he had misunderstood I checked with teacher and was told they did not teach them at all and that if he wanted to pass the tables quizzes we would have to teach him

Very odd, we teach them at our school

Penguin,how do you do it?

How strange! Our school teach them too. We then practice at home.

Of course multiplication is taught at school but fast recall of times tables needs to be practised and consolidated at home.

We teach times tables, but the only way to really learn them is through very regular practice.

Or should be anyway. sounds very odd.

That's extraordinary that they don't teach them at all. I've always used them as part of a standard warm up at the beginning of any maths lesson. Sounds like a totally misguided cop out to me.

When I was at school in the seventies my teacher would have us do tables during dead times such as waiting to go into assembly, lunch, or just at the end of the day in winter after everyone had retrieved their coats, bags and hats.

Now you teach right up until the bell and sod the parents freezing their arses off having to wait an extra fifteen minutes at the gate.

We also used to have story time. Even in year six. Classic novels read by the teacher at the end of the day for the benefit of children who were poor readers or didn't have access to books. Now they only get extracts from books in Literacy Hour. Way to kill a love of reading.

The Numeracy curriculum is packed. Teachers teach the principles of multiplication but the time for actual memorising of facts hasn't been built in.

DD had to go to Kumon to learn her number bonds and tables because she needed endless repetition and drill.

YANBU. I think this sucks for kids whose parents don't help them and basically creates a two-tier system where the disadvantaged (in terms of attention and help) just get more disadvantaged.

They do teach times tables and offer tips for remembering them e.g. doubling, doubling again, halving, using your fingers for the nine times table, but some tables need to be learned. They cannot MAKE children remember them. How do you propose they teach children the seven times table, for example? They need to learn it by heart, and therefore practised at home.

My DD's class teacher taught times tables by getting the DC to do multiplication homework every school night for a year. Worked a treat!

I had the same thing at my DCs primary. They did tables games in class, but left it to us to drill them and actually get the sums into their heads. I would have much rather it had been the other way round, then I would have got to do the fun stuff after dinner at home and they could have done the rote learning at school. I felt like I was doing all the work on this because the teacher didn't want to be thought of as 'boring'.

I sat in on a primary class doing timetables on an interactive white board. I think it might have been from the BBC. The kids got up and pressed stuff on the board against a timer.......it was ACE. A far cry from the SMP cards I was on as kid!

I used to set it for homework too. Every single week. And division.

Not sure why I was unable to help DD but by the time her problems with recall were recognised I had already given birth to her severely autistic sibling and couldn't give her the input she needed.

I bought into a few on-line programmes but they were rubbish. Carol Voldemort's is especially atrocious. Hours and hours on the bloody ONE times table and no way of skipping to an appropriate level.

As a hormental pre-teen with an authoritarian Kumon instructor compared to harassed mother she came on leaps and bounds.

Ds school sing them and ask us to reinforce at home.

A friend queried this at her DC's school only to be told loftily the teacher introduced the fundamentals, thereafter it's up to parents and carers to consolidate these number tasks and the teacher is able to pinpoint the pupils who are weakest oh well that's all right then

Maybe DS1's class quizzes will work but it sounds a cop out. Unless teacher just wants to encourage plenty of practice at home. The tables sink in with daily repetition so do chants in the car or write on post-its and put them up around the house.

Surely it's no different to literacy? Teachers teach the principles of phonics and spelling but reinforcement happens at home. Nobody would be up in arms at the thought of having read to or with their child, or to have books around or be seen reading for pleasure.

Funnily enough, DS insists on having number bond questions asked as part of his bedtime routine with tickles given to his sister if he gets one right

I know someone who had number bonds to twenty written on their bathroom wall next to the loo. That wasn't something I tried, I must admit.

And I didn't mean to type Carol Voldemort even though I don't rate her product.