to think this is a crappy way to teach?

[swishyinhersatinandtat]

Just had DS9 come down from bed in floods of tears.

Turns out at school - he's in year 4 - there's a 'times tables challenge' - kids are tested on rapid recall of tables over a 3 minutes. According to how many get right they move up levels - bronze, silver, gold etc. This is on a board at the front of the class for all to see. He and two other kids are at the bottom.

It surprises me a bit as - please don't think I'm boasting - he's always been academically very strong at maths - lots of extension work in lower years, shining reports blah blah. That's not what concerns me though. What I don't like is displaying names like this - surely some kids are going to struggle more than others? Why display their names? Aptitude at certain things is so different to moving names up and down a behaviour chart. Also this seems to go against the whole school ethos of 'don't learn things in parrot fashion' etc.

I get that this isn't a major issue, but DS was very upset. DH thinks I'm being ridiculous and this is a normal way to teach. Opinions?

Nolongersurprised, because times tables learning is not "maths" as such

I have 2 kids who were no good at times tables (SEN, dyslexia and memory problems) who really struggled with the rote learning, yet could work out any mental maths problems with ease. Bottom set at primary, top set at secondary

Sounds like OP child might be similar?

@Ambs81 I know this thread is about the OP but I hope they will not mind my saying that my child was in tears because she was so embarrassed to come last in the test (and to get such a very low score), and to have to call that out in class.

Upset enough to miss the high school open day that had been planned. I have very strong memories of being very upset and 'shamed' at school for failing to learn spellings (being dyslexic at a time when it was not talked about). Not amusing.

Winning a prize for doing well is not the same as feeling humiliated for doing badly. In terms of a scoreboard of who is doing well/ badly, the children who do badly might get upset, might cry, might be less than enthusiastic about going into school.

Only those parents where this process affects the children negatively will complain.

Kids who do well are unlikely to be negatively affected by this being well known. Although, it may lead to teasing or bullying so in some ways it could have a negative impact. In which case, again, they will be the children whose parents complain.

Unless you have had a child who is upset due to their results being publicly known, you may well not even think of the affect.

Times tables learning is really good for some kids - especially those who aren't that strong at maths. It gives them confidence tackling arithmetic (which pops up in a lot of subjects) and makes much of the lower level maths easier. So there are good reasons to encourage a lot of children to put quite a bit of effort in. It's not a great indicator of mathematical ability, though.

The point is that a ranking system like the one the OPis describing is likely to encourage only some of the class and to discourage those who need the most help.

babygrey

But as dermymc said, it if you know them then it frees up the brain for the other stuff.

“My year 11s are factorising quadratics this week. They can do it, but their lack of times table knowledge slows them down. They spend so much time counting through their times tables whereas if they just "knew" (ie instantly recalled" that 7 x 9 = 63, the process would be far easier for them. They would also have more chance of remembering how to factorise because they could dedicate more brain power to it. (I know that's a simple way of putting it re brain power etc, it's late on a Saturday!)”

The OP said "I get that this isn't a major issue, but DS was very upset. DH thinks I'm being ridiculous and this is a normal way to teach. Opinions?"

I think it is the putting the scores up that the OP especially resents, not the fact the child has to learn the times table.

And I do think this is a form of shaming. That's a strong word for it, yes, but shame could mean "...an unpleasant self-conscious emotion typically associated with a negative evaluation of the self, withdrawal motivations, and feelings of distress, exposure, mistrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness."

(That's Wikipedia for you).

Maybe a one off exposure to this may not be a massive thing but imagine being last a lot! Might that be unpleasant, make one feel self-conscious and have a negative evaluation of oneself?

My dd has dyslexia, is on the spectrum and has anxiety, not all kids react the same.

I regularly lost house points for my team due to my poor spelling. This negative 'stick' approach never made me better at spelling and only made me hate school. Luckily some things did inspire me and I went on to get a degree. I'm afraid for a lot of kids the stick doesn't work.

I think that the competitiveness is not always good. Between equally matched students, it is fine, but between all kids it is not.

If we want to give incentives to kids surely encouraging them to improve on their own scores, with achievable goals seems to be the way to go. Not comparing them to who is doing the best.

Imagine a child in a class with a bad leg, would school make them race against the other kids on Sports Day, then displayed their name in last place on the school board and think it will inspire them to run faster in future? I don't think a school would do that.

As a teacher I can say that whilst I don't like it, I understand it. The times tables test being brought in for Y4 kiddos is another pressure we now have to deal with, and it is likely to be a 100% pass or fail. So unfortunately us teachers are now being judged on our ability to get our kiddos to rote learn them, even at the expense of having any understanding behind it because for our own performance management meetings we need to meet targets of so many percent of kiddos passing the bloody thing. Poor kiddos get 6 seconds to answer and can be any times table up to 12x12!!!

TwoTinyCrafters I wish more teachers would puss back against all this stuff. It is such a negative approach to learning and makes me miserable just thinking about how we teach in this country.

"In the Swedish curriculum it states that it should not be the child themselves that are evaluated, but the processes of learning. I completely think this is correct, as what is important is not so much the result but the journey. It also contributes to a highly enjoyable learning environment where, the children learn without realising as they are having fun! In the UK, we work towards tests and prepare the child for testing, whereas in Sweden they work towards the individual child. This is so important. The child should always be priority. "

blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/glowblogs/kguodeportfolio/2015/10/02/sweden-vs-uk-early-years/

push not puss!

(Negative about teaching not based on teachers in UK, but style, testing etc.)

Italiangreyhound
I agree and have got into many lovely discussions about this. Unfortunately this is the reason so many good teachers are leaving the profession. My kiddos all have individual targets to work towards and get praise for reaching them, and I never shame them or compare them to their peers. All kiddos learn differently and at different paces. Op should let the school know this has upset ds and they may reevaluate this method of teaching further....

My daughter is in y2. They’re doing these or similar. 5 minutes timed each week. When they complete one level to 100% they get a certificate and do the next level the following week. No charts displayed with names as far as I know but the children know where they rank. My daughter is able and keen to do these sheets and move on as quickly as she can but she often tells me who is ahead of her and how she needs to catch up with them. She also knows who sits on each table in the class and how the tables are ranked.

I’m also a teacher and I would be uncomfortable displaying this kind of chart in my class.

As for rote learning. It might be the best way but some just can’t do it. Me included. I hate having to recall anything, studied like mad for exams and always felt my memory of the subject matter let me down. I recently did a seen exam and the lecturer believes that unseen exams are pointless as memorising facts is a different skill to applying the facts appropriately. He said he wanted to know we could construct an argument appropriately and many people in unseen exams just brain dump everything they know but don’t actually answer the question. He set a seen exam. I still found this hard but I’m hoping I’ve done better than when I last did exams 20 odd years ago. Oh and this is a psychology exam and the lecturer is a memory expert. We also had an open book seen exam where we could take in notes, google things if we needed to!! It was a data analysis exam and the seen part was that we were given half of the data to practise with and in the exam would be presented with the full set, so the final numbers would change. I did really well.

I’m in my 40s and have never been held back due to my inability to recall times tables. They did get quicker when I was teaching primary maths in y6 but I had real sympathy with those who couldn’t recall at speed. I can apply my maths and use a calculator.

Singing is a good way to remember things though. I’m a music specialist and found this out (after doing all my exams) that I’m very good at recalling song lyrics and even tested this out with putting text to a tune. So for those struggling with rote learning it is worth a try getting the times tables songs.

It's not a "method of teaching" to put names on a board. It is a (disputed) way of trying to motivate students.

Individual teachers will be judged on the results their classes get. Teachers cannot change central government policy by "kicking against it". They can write letters, blogs, speak to MPs, share their concerns.... But ultimately its a government decision.

scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54f8c25c98834017c317442ea970b-500wi

Not sure how to post a pic. Above link is the same as this pic.

BTW learning the times tables as a song is still rote learning them. No one really cares how they get stuck into your brain, as long as they do get stuck!

As explained above celtic, recall aids retention of other facts, because you aren't overloading your brain while trying to learn new information. A few years ago I'd have agreed with you about working out times tables. However now research has shown that recalling times tables is better for learning.

Not at all! My Ds school currently give our wrist bands when they learn Waac set of times tables. As a child who finds things difficult but eventually gets there I feel this may “draw attention” to the fact he is slower and cause more harm than encouragement. I find it especially annoying as last year he worked his socks off to get to a fantastic academic and confidence level and wasn’t recognised AT ALL, when one child was given recognition for eating new foods!!
Considering mental health is a HUGE deal in schools now I feel this needs sorting!

Challenges are normal. However, it is not normal in this day and age to display a list in order of rank. It may be he is very accurate, just not super quick. While it is important to be able to recall tables quite quickly, (useful for long calculations with several times tables in them e.g. 456x63) they don't need to be recalled at lightning speed. If he wants to speed up, though, you could download an app or go onto top marks maths website.

Long term quickly doing them in his head is not as effective for exams because if you 'know' them then you know links between numbers and when working on division the answers will kind of leap out - much more effective that quickly doing it in your head - learning the rote is a really valuable skill. You want them to see 45 and know instantly that it's a multiple of :3,5 and 9 - you don't get that instant feel for a number if you're still having to work
It out.
It's about time tracing went back to this style of tables recall - now all we need is chronological History for cause and effect rather than this daft victorians to vikings to First World War that we have at the moment.
As for kids names - kids always know anyway and by year 4 he should be able to cope with a bit of competition.

And for kids like my dd, quickly working them out in her head would be a potential disaster because she would have got a different answer every time!

now all we need is chronological History for cause and effect rather than this daft victorians to vikings to First World War that we have at the moment.

Yes, please! We do this at home. It makes history into an exciting story rather than a confusing hodge lodge of random bits and pieces....

Dear OP,

THIS ABSOLUTELY STINKS!

I do not care what anyone else says bc I was at the bottom as were both of my dc. We are dyslexic. Being the last person in this case does not teach any life lessons. None except that it is sometimes useless to apply yourself bc your brain is not equipped to learn some things. Sometimes it is better to go around a fence instead of over it

It is like asking a child with a broken leg to run around the track and expecting him to keep up.

I did not know that I was dyslexic until my ds was tested.

It does not mean that someone is more or less intelligent than others. My husband has advanced degrees in math (teaches and engineer) and he and my dc' s teachers have assured dc that they are not "less than" bc they have no trouble with concepts of calculus and dd is in university as engineering student.

Ds never finished learning multiplication tables, but with a calculator, was just fine in college math too.

FWIW, my dc had numbers but not names on board and everyone knew that dc were poor at memorization of multiplication tables. It was difficult for them but they survived.

I, on the other hand, had no one on my side, and while I had been very good in math until the year I could not remember my multiplication tables, I was picked on relentlessly by teacher and classmates and decided that I was stupid in math and I made bad decisions about careers bc of this.

I don't know the answer for you but you have my wholehearted sympathy and if he is dyslexic, it does not mean that he cannot be an excellent math student if you figure out how he needs help.

Good luck.

Would you complain if your child was at the top or even middle of the table?

I was the parent of the child near the top of the lists who did complain. I didn't need to see a list to know how he was doing, and I was conscious of the effect on his friends at or near the bottom of the list. I'm happy to say that the school took notice and stopped publishing league table lists.

Learning times tables is about practice and memory, there is no mathematic skills involved, if this isn't his strength its because he is not practicing as much as the other kids.

Or because he has a learning difficulty which means he can't do well no matter how much he practises. It is perhaps ironic that practice and memory has not led you to spell practise as a verb correctly.

Just have a quiet word and say he is worrying. Teacher will put his mind at rest n say it doest matter a lot. Tell him its not that important but just keep trying as it will make the harder maths when he grows up easier as he will be able to do some in his head. If its done right it should be a no pressure thing but some kids feel it more and need reassurance. Worry is counterproductive happy learners learn better. Good luck

I think he is a bit young to have public grading. In my day that started in secondary school. In primary schools it used to be said that it might be the cause of bullying the children who are at the bottom, making them lose not just self respect, but the will to do better. Sometimes a child at the bottom feels that they are never going to be near the top. Times table is a bone of contention, always was, but once it is mastered it is surprising how fast children learn to do mental arithmetic. Old fashioned idea nowadays, but good brain exercise as they grow older.

Mine had the two minute challenge in year 3. 20 times table questions and they had to get 19 or 20 out of 20 in order to move their frog on the chart to the next one. If they got 18 or lower they stayed where they were, did the same challenge the following weeks until they got it right, they they moved up. It really taught them quick recall, no one was made fun of if they didn’t move and it enabled the teacher to spend extra time on the ones needing extra help. Every single child left year 3 knowing their tables with quick recall. The school still do it now in year 3 and it works brilliantly.

But if your child's frog didn't move along the line (ds's would still be on the fucking lilypond)....don't you think that child would feel a bit shit, about themselves even if they didn't get picked on?