To think school should have for DS1 sons spelling and tables sorted by now?

[Maybemable]

Generally I'm happy with the primary school our 4 kids go to. DS1 is in year 5. We have always been told he is on track with his spelling and his maths. However he doesn't reliably know his times tables and his written work is littered with spelling mistakes. He is in a bulge year and the choice of secondary schools for boys near us isn't great. Ideally he needs to take the 11 plus however he is light years away from being able to. When we asked the head about it he said DS reading was "good", that the school is rolling out its spelling policy and that home support is vital. I'm trying to do 15 mins a day of maths with him and 15 mins of spellings but he needs an hour a day and that isn't feasible on a daily basis with 3 other kids and a job. The school is ranked good by Ofsted - I expected them to have done more to make sure he has a good standard of maths and English by now. Tempted to take him out one day a week to home school - we can't afford a tutor.

I think times tables is something you need to do at home really.

That should have said AIBU to think school should have DS1 spelling and maths more sorted by now

My dd is in year 5 and her spellings aren't perfect either. In fact last week I went to a display of work at the school and none of year 5 work had perfect spellings. Dd doesn't know all her times tables either.

They are 9/10 years old. I think you are expecting too much.

Same here. I would have thought my DS would be better by now than he is.
His spelling isn't good and he certainly is not great at his times tables.

I agree that this is something that needs to be done at home, but it is hard when they are at school for so long and then we work. Excuses I know

I don't know. I had to work really, really hard at home with DS on his tables and spelling, both of which were atrocious.

We did a lot of stuff on the computer. Multiplication.com has a lot of great games.

Does your DS have a tablet? Am sure there must be some decent apps out there which might be a bit less Labour intensive for you?

Yikes, labour not Labour.

Perhaps he just isn't a natural at those things and you need to accept that rather than trying to push him to a test which isn't right for him?

My DS1 is also year 5 and we do times tables at home and tutoring has started at school for the 11+, is your school offering this? We also have a private tutor every week for maths as that's his weakest subject. We have 4 DC and I agree it's hard but I really push them at home to learn. Our school say by year 4 they should know their times tables up to 12. My DS2 is in year 4 and again it's something we are really working on at home as its his weakest subject too.
I'd want to know why the school are saying he is on track if you don't think he is.

I suggest you get him Timez attack. He can learn his tables while playing on the PC

www.bigbrainz.com/index.php

I am not sure how you best help children with spellings.

Thanks all - useful tips especially re multiplication games etc. And I will ask the school why our views on his progress are different from theirs. Reassuring to know DS1 not only one with spelling maths issues. Not ready to give up yet - he is not naturally strong at these and ultimately we won't force him to take a test that is not right. Want to make sure we and the school are giving him best chance of getting into a good school.

You need to do tables at home. Timestables.me.uk allows you to print off timetables sheets which you can tailor to his ability. Start with individual tables then you can mix them, then add indices and then make them mixed. We have been doing a sheet of 60 tables 3-4 times a week. I set the timer for 3 minutes and we see what my year 5 can do. I've just moved her on to indices and in a couple of weeks we will go to mixed. You just have to find the time, we do it straight after breakfast

I am 53 and I don't reliably know my times tables. This is not for the want of trying by various schools, my parents and me; and has been a source of occasional ridicule.

In my experience times tables just need to be learnt and practised every day. You should be able to give him a sheet of 100 questions or whatever and leave him to get on with it. Practise every day, a test every week and 99% of children will learn them.

I haven't got any useful advice Maybemable but I sympathise. The education system in the UK is built on the premise that there is a parent around to put in many hours a week of formal educational support. It's one of the reasons we have such poor social mobility in this country. In my view, schools entrench inequality because they rely so much on parental input.

Before anyone starts on me, this is NOT a go at teachers, who already have to pick up far too many pieces from the result of inadequate parenting. This is an observation that support for family, education and society-wide services (e.g. child services, libraries, free extra-curricular activities for children, etc) is at an all-time low in the UK and children are suffering as a result.

Children spend 6 hours a day at school. That's only 2 hours less than a typical adult's working day. And it has to be balanced against the fact that children require more sleep. 6 hours a day of formal learning should be enough without children having to spend an extra hour at home each evening - most working people wouldn't be happy with that expectation placed on them by their employers.

Where is the time for children to take part in extra-curricular activities which educate them less formally but are just as important? Where is the time for children to just relax?

What happens to the children whose parents can't or won't enable that extra home learning? They get left behind by the very institution that's supposed to enable them to break out of that situation.

The truth is that we need more money spent on child services so that children's home lives are good enough that schools can concentrate purely on formal education to a level where home input shouldn't be making that much difference.

As a working parent I really struggle with homework commitments. I work shifts, which mean I have to co-opt people in to enforce spelling practice, reading and topics. We sometimes have to give up our one family day in order to spend a few hours creating some sort of fact file as part of homework. Personally, I feel my children's well-being and education would have been better served by my taking them out for the day as a family and letting them see and learn something that way. But that's not the system we have and I don't want my children to be made to feel 'different' at school so we muddle along as best we can.

While the children from disadvantaged backgrounds don't, fall further behind, and start displaying a 'naughty' "I don't care" attitude to disguise the fact they feel let down not just at home but that school further punishes them for that.

Poundingthestreets I 100% agree with you.

I aim raising my children and educating them in ways that school can't.

I am a truly terrible teacher to them and it really doesn't work for me or my kids.

You will have to do them at home, I'm afraid.

Yes, it sucks and it isn't fair. What if your parents are illiterate/can't speak English/are chronically ill/work part-time jobs round the clock to keep the family afloat? Children with these kinds of family backgrounds lose out when schools don't get the basics sorted out.

But... since the system is like this, there is nothing for it but to do tables and spellings at home.

My nieces spent a lot of the summer holidays in tutoring, at my sister's expense. The website for their school is full of chirpy accounts of all the lovely, enjoyable activities they got up to during the school year--Easter bonnets and forest school and "mindfulness" sessions and Philosophy 4 Kids and so on and so on. Hours and hours each week, as far as I can tell. I do find myself wondering how much of that tutoring could have been omitted if the school had spent a bit less time doing cutting-and-sticking with them and a bit more time getting the boring stuff sorted out.

I've been doing times tables with my two since they were in Year 2, nothing major to begin. In the car we always have a commercial radio station on and we did them when the ad breaks came on! As they got older we'd stop activities for 3 minutes and crack through some. My DCs are like me and have no patience so we work better in little but often short bursts.

However we are lucky in that the school is $h!t hot on them and they are reinforced in a big way.

I remember being at a selective grammar school and in the 4th form (year 10 now??) a girl didn't know her 6, 7 or 8s. Our teacher was agog but I remember feeling extremely sorry for her in that no one had ever taught her them.

I'll probably get splinters in my bum but I think it's between school and home to teach the basics. In my opinion for my DCs that was tying shoe laces, reading, good manners, telling the time, times tables, riding a bike & swimming. But I guess that could be a whole new thread!!!

well this is an odd thread...the consensus seems to be that the basics of education (maths and reading) should be done at home....what does that make schools? Free childcare?

Also if grammar schools base their admissions on timetables recitation speed then they are too dumb to bother with.

Why are you leaving this up to the school? Surely, for something as simple & basic as spelling and times tables, parents should take some (even most) responsibility? It's simple basic stuff.

Why are you leaving this up to the school? Surely, for something as simple & basic as spelling and times tables, parents should take some (even most) responsibility? It's simple basic stuff.

What about the children whose parents are illiterate? (Of which there is a surprising amount).

What about the children whose parents who don't finish work in time to get their DC to do these things before it's bed time? (Or is sleep-deprivation ok?)

What about the children whose parents simply don't do it, either because they're genuinely neglectful or because they have chaotic home lives, or other children they have to deal with, or elderly relatives, etc?

The truth is that the number of children who have a parent ready, willing and able to support education at home in this way are in a minority. And by making future educational success so reliant on this level of parental input, all we're doing is writing off half a generation.

Personally, I want schools to equalise the playing field. It saddens me that if I died tomorrow and my children ended up in care, their life chances would plummet in terms of their expected educational outcomes, despite the fact that they would be the same children with the same intelligence.

I went to Grammar School in 1963. I have found postcards from friends with poor spelling and we were people who passed the 11+ in the 'good old days'. Spelling is an ongoing process and some people find it easy, others don't. Times tables are easier to crack as you can practise any time- in the car on the school run, at the table, anywhere really and in small snatches.
My generation learnt times tables by daily chanting 15 or so minutes a day before assembly. What makes you think he needs an hour a day? (Genuine question).

I think yabu to say you don't have the hour a day you believe he needs, but you expect school, with 29 other children to teach as well, to spend an hour a day on bringing him to the level you think he should be.

Thanks all for a really interesting debate.larrythecucumber - hour is for maths and English - we do my maths and often have to do the lesson first so that's 30 mins. Spellings are quicker but when we do a spelling workbook page that takes half an hour...
I was at a rough primary in the 70s - they had taught us times tables by the middle of year 4 and we had weekly spelling tests. I don't remember ever doing homework with my parents! I don't resent it exactly it's just that I was taught all this at school so was DH and we don't know why DS1 isn't similarly being taught it there.

Also I'm not saying for school should spend an hour a day on my child I do think ensuring kids have reached a certain level of tables, spellings etc is what their purpose is. DS2 is in year 1 and I don't think he gets one to one reading at school, they get guided reading instead.