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?

It is pointless teaching kids to parrot times tables. I remember from primary school some of the thick ones learnt to do it.I never did, but I learned to use logic and mathematical rules and passed O Levels maths with a high grade. Well done you
derxa - yeah I sounded a bit stupid, what I meant was, parrot teaching is not as good as teaching method, and I tried to give a personal slant. Oh to be in a small Welsh village in 1965.

What an odd thing for you to say, mobydick. Did you really go back to first principles in everything to do with maths? The Pythagorean theorem must have been exhausting.

Moby we've been over this on the thread. Teaching pupils to recall tables is different to them understanding what they are doing.

Good teaching does both. However by y4 the emphasis should be on memorising them for recall, because this knowledge is so important later on.

Our chart has a list on the wall, no scores, just an alphabetical list with a tick next to which badge(s) they have.