To be concerned about primary teachers not having basic maths skills?

[ThreeTimesThree]

My year 3’s DS teachers are repeatedly making mistakes, and I’m wondering if I need to raise this officially with the school.

His usual class teacher (who is now on leave) was unable to read a scale over 100cm. (This was during home schooling and I happened to be with him at the time) So when the scale went to 100cm and 3cm, she said “130cm and 3cm”. And for the next example made a similar mistake. My son said this was not right and what the answer should be. To which she apologised, and just skipped the rest of these similar questions.

Another teacher he’s had since April was unable to do fractions; so saying 3/4 of 120 is 30, 5/6 of 180 is 30, 2/3 of 90 is 30. My DS pointed out these were incorrect and told her what the answers should be. So at first she insisted her working were right But DS insisted it was not right and explained his working out,she double checked and said yes and made the class rub their work out and rewrite it down. She’s now off isolating so DS currently has a supply teacher.

Supply teacher “teaching” fractions last week. And saying 1/2 x2 = 2/4, 1/5 x 5 = 5/25, 2/4 x 2 = 4/8. She was trying to teach equivalent fractions. DS told the teacher those were incorrect, and she was just rewriting the same fraction but using different numbers.

But the teacher insisted she was right. My son said 1/2 x 2 is the same as 1/2 + 1/2 which equals 1. But she replied, “we are not doing addition, we are doing multiplication.” And told DS he was confused. DS has amazing maths skills and came home that day very upset as the teacher was teaching them incorrect maths.

I had a word with the teacher the following morning to say DS was upset and if she could tell me what she had taught. And sure enough she said she was teaching the children 1/2 x 2 = 2/4, 1/5 x 5 = 5/25. I politely pointed out these didn’t look right, and if she could review what she was teaching them. But the next day she did the same mistakes again, as my DS informed me.

Just wondering if I should raise this with the head? Surely teachers need to have better maths skills than this?

You’ve apparently had 3 primary school teachers who can’t do the most basic of maths and you’re wondering whether to raise it with the head teacher? Really? I’d have thought the answer was obvious.

@yogamatted

There can be traditional and modern approaches to teaching maths, but the maths itself does not change. In this case, it was just plain wrong.

Yes. The maths doesn’t change. It is either correct or incorrect.

However, I have seen incorrect spellings marked as correct. I am not sure whether that was because the person marking genuinely didn’t know there were errors there or not. It seems to be shaped more by a collective philosophy that as long as the pupils are generally heading in the right direction then the feedback should be wholly positive.

This is a mistake, imv. Accuracy is the key to understanding the differences and building a really solid foundation in the basics is essential for future competence.

Did I say it was every school? Every teacher?

No, but you definitely alluded that it was regular. Mumsnet is notorious for teacher abuse so maybe don’t add to it when you’re part of the profession.

Like I said, there are lots of reasons kids don’t get to age related by the end of year 6, please don’t be simplistic and suggest it’s just shit teaching. Unless you regularly observe across all the local primary schools and know it’s definitely the teaching and nothing else?

My DC are teenagers now but we had the same experience at their school, from year 4 onwards. DS was regularly correcting the teacher in maths.

Most of the children were having private tutoring by that point anyway so we just kind of accepted the school was very poor at maths and taught it ourselves. DS found it funny that he knew more than the teacher. I think it's a nationwide problem tbh.

• poor teaching hold the able back in particular - by the time some children reach year 5 their maths is superior to the teachers that teach them - this is totally unacceptable

Who are these children who have their lives blighted by poor teaching.....held back? How does that work? Are they in some sort of harness?

I teach a lot of students who go on to become primary teachers. And their basic numeracy is shocking. We're talking 'most X do Y; in a study 40% of X did Y' and things. We don't even try to teach quantitative methods on the programme because they can't cope with it.

They've all got at least a C in GCSE maths too.

It appears comprehension might not be your best skill. The teacher did not apologise after I spoke to her. No idea how you came to that conclusion.

It was because you said

To which she apologised, and just skipped the rest of these similar questions.

Maybe remembering your OP isn’t your best skill?

I hadn’t realised there were 3 teachers - I’d read it as the first 2 incidents were the same teacher. Genuine mistake (and after all I am a primary school teacher so I’m not very good at maths.)

@Planttrees
There are some dreadful teachers around unfortunately.
She may be a very, very good teacher. Just not a good maths teacher. I used to teach in primary schools. I never saw a teacher who could deliver high quality lessons in Maths and Science and English and PE and history/geography and IT and let’s not even bother mentioning music, and art, let alone French which they’re sometimes roped into as well. They’re not Superman /Woman. It’s the whole primary system that’s the problem IMO.

[quote sunstreaming]@threetimesthree. With respect, I think you are wrong. 1/2x2 by common sense means '2 halves' which equals 1 whole. BUt mathematically, a whole number when written as a fraction has the denominator (bottom number) as 1. So the calculations id 1/2 x 2/1 and the answer is 2/2 = 1. To explain it another way the faction we call 'a half' is one whole amount divided by 2. The number we call '2' is 2 units, not divided by anything -or if you want to express it as a fraction, you write it as 2/1fraction, you write 2/1. I am a retired teacher (Science) and I am worried that these teachers don't understand fractions.[/quote]
Oops yes you’re right, I meant to right 1/2 x 2/1= 2/4
Or 1/2 = 2/4 with arrows from numerator to numerator and denominator to denominator showing each had to be multiplied by the same number i.e. 2 to get the equivalent fraction.

But yes, if we were to write a whole number as a fraction, it would always be n/1.

Being able to do a passable job at something yourself doesn’t mean you’re in any way qualified to teach it to 30 students.

@LaLaLandIsNoFun

Wow. Yes I would raise it.

It’s 20 years since I took my GCSEs and haven’t had a job where I’ve had to regularly use maths and even I know those examples are wrong. This is basic stuff.

You should have gone in with cut up fruit and got them to figure out their odd equations using concrete examples.

You regularly use Mathematics in every aspect of your life, starting with getting up in time to get to work!

@Flipflops85

It appears comprehension might not be your best skill. The teacher did not apologise after I spoke to her. No idea how you came to that conclusion.

It was because you said

To which she apologised, and just skipped the rest of these similar questions.

Maybe remembering your OP isn’t your best skill?

I hadn’t realised there were 3 teachers - I’d read it as the first 2 incidents were the same teacher. Genuine mistake (and after all I am a primary school teacher so I’m not very good at maths.)

Reading might be another skill you lack then. Here’s what I wrote; maybe reading it again will help your comprehension. His usual class teacher (who is now on leave) was unable to read a scale over 100cm. (This was during home schooling and I happened to be with him at the time) So when the scale went to 100cm and 3cm, she said “130cm and 3cm”. And for the next example made a similar mistake. My son said this was not right and what the answer should be. To which she apologised, and just skipped the rest of these similar questions. Where does it say I spoke to her or she apologised to me in this incident?

And as I’ve said many times, of course it’s ok to make mistakes. It’s when you cannot recognise those mistakes when it has been highlighted and proceed to teach incorrectly, that is the issue.

Given the government is not willing to invest in real life specialist teachers, they’re probably better off leaving the actual teaching part of Maths in primary schools to video/software. 20-30 mins a day in front of tailor made videos explaining the concepts in a lively, professional way. With additional software for the kids who still “don’t get it”. I really think that would be better.

@themalamander

Let's be honest, many teachers are lacking in many areas. Grammar seems to be a common one. I'm sick to the back teeth of the letters which say, "hand it back to myself," or, "call myself anytime." I've turned into the horrible parent who corrects it and sends it back in their homework jotter. She's still doing it. I'm sure she thinks it makes her sounds smarter by always using myself, but it just doesn't.

I'm sure you think it makes you look smarter, but it just doesn't.

What I didn't like when I was a school was a lot on the non maths/science teachers would almost brag that they weren't a maths person or they just didn't get maths

I recall a navigation officer of one the HM's ships saying how crap he'd been at maths.
It really annoys me when people think it's almost acceptable to be poor at Maths, I've heard parents saying that their child is poor at maths, 'takes after me, ha, ha'. Oddly they get paranoid if they're not on the same reading level as their friends' children.

Your making me glad ds teacher uses twinkle worksheets 😂

Alternatively, the government could recognize that children/young people develop at different rates.They may understand a concept on Tuesday and not a week later.Some 7 year olds will need an actual pizza cut in half,some will nod and smile and pretend they understand and some will come from homes where no English is spoken. Some will be thinkers,dreamers,questioners and God help them.

@Amboseli

My DC are teenagers now but we had the same experience at their school, from year 4 onwards. DS was regularly correcting the teacher in maths.

Most of the children were having private tutoring by that point anyway so we just kind of accepted the school was very poor at maths and taught it ourselves. DS found it funny that he knew more than the teacher. I think it's a nationwide problem tbh.

This is why I don’t know if I should raise it or not. I know my DS will be fine as he has the ability to recognise when an equation or sum is incorrect. But not all children can.

And yes, it can be funny for the pupils when the teacher makes a mistake and the teacher can easily make it into a joke by saying oops silly me, or something. It does not undermine their authority.

As a former primary teacher, I think it’s ludicrous that all primary teachers are expected to teach Maths. Having a B or C at GCSE and passing their numeracy test doesn’t mean you’re any good at Maths, let alone able to teach it. You can’t effectively teach a subject you’re not confident about yourself. It really is that simple IMO.

The maths taught in primary school is not difficult, and does not require somebody to be good at maths to explain it. If anything, being a very able mathematician can make you a poor teacher of maths to young children, because it's quite difficult to have to go back to such basics.

@Theydidntwin

“I wasn’t allowed to speak to the teacher apparently. After the teacher had explained what she was teaching them (we’d been chatting no more than a min) a staff member that was on school yard duty came trotting over and said I can’t speak to the teacher due to regulations on how long I can speak to staff for (a regulation we haven’t been notified of or encountered previously). And anything I want to discuss, I should phone in. “

@ThreeTimesThree, might this be because the school had already been made aware of the mistakes the supply teacher had been making, and they were dealing with it? Let’s hope so.

Not that inventing a rule about how long you were allowed to speak to the supply teacher was right in any way. Perhaps it was a spur of the moment reaction by the staff member who couldn’t think quickly enough how to explain what the school was doing, with the supply teacher there.

I think most schools at the moment are operating in a way that minimises the time parents are on site, e.g. one way systems to pick up children from outside, and nobody entering the school, and teachers are told that they shouldn't let parents engage them in conversation, but that they should email with any concerns.

[quote Coolwaterscoolcool]@HowManyToes

The teacher is correct though IF they have verbally explained it correctly. It’s hard to illustrate on here but if they are writing on a board and talking through the sum they don’t necessarily need to write it out in the same way. For example if you are talking it through you could say “we have the fraction 1/2 and we are going to multiply both the top and bottom figures by 2 to reach the equivalent factor”. In this scenario the teacher may have just wrote the fraction and the multiplier on the board. Without being in the room it’s hard to say, but if I was the parent I would want to understand the context of the teaching before reporting the teacher.[/quote]
It doesn’t matter what she has said, what she has written does not match what she is doing. It is incorrect. There’s no “but you know what I mean” in maths - it’s a very precise subject and what you write down matters. Sending pupils mixed signals like this leads to misunderstandings that can take a long time to undo once they are learned.

You don’t have to explain it to me, I’m a secondary maths teacher and I have to deal with pupils coming from primary with all sorts of misunderstandings and the belief that “it doesn’t matter what you e written as long as you get the right answer” attitude. Which of course is nonsense in maths - what you write down matters a great deal.

As a former primary teacher, I think it’s ludicrous that all primary teachers are expected to teach Maths. Having a B or C at GCSE and passing their numeracy test doesn’t mean you’re any good at Maths, let alone able to teach it. You can’t effectively teach a subject you’re not confident about yourself. It really is that simple IMO.

LMAO

You don't need to be good at maths, primary maths is mainly arithmetic, it is basic and if you can't teach maths and English you should not be teaching in primary.

I'm dyslexic, 90% of the time my spelling and grammar are fine but I do not have the skills to teach primary English.

A really good foundation in maths and English is the least we should accept from primary schools.

I had an English teacher at A level who would get 'their and 'there' mixed up.

I also know someone who trained to be a primary school teacher. She was lovely, incredibly hard working, had a degree and was dedicated to being a teacher. But she genuinely didn't know what fractions were, and her basic numeracy knowledge was woeful.

I think at Year 3 teachers should have competent knowledge of maths and I would definitely raise it. It's better to not be taught at all than to be taught the wrong thing.

I had a teacher in Y5 in the 70s who I picked up on mistakes in spelling and maths. Perhaps I was an insufferable 10 year old but this isn't a new thing.

@Snoozer11

I had an English teacher at A level who would get 'their and 'there' mixed up.

I also know someone who trained to be a primary school teacher. She was lovely, incredibly hard working, had a degree and was dedicated to being a teacher. But she genuinely didn't know what fractions were, and her basic numeracy knowledge was woeful.

I think at Year 3 teachers should have competent knowledge of maths and I would definitely raise it. It's better to not be taught at all than to be taught the wrong thing.

Mmmm. There are many jobs people are keen to do, but which they can't do because they lack some vital qualification.

When it comes to primary school teachers, yes I want them to be lovely people, but I also want them to know their stuff. If they can't or won't get up to speed on maths and English primary teaching is the wrong career for them.