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?

The teacher isn't making a mistake here.

They have a fundamental misunderstanding of something they're meant to know and it's their responsibility to correct this in order to do their job correctly.

If you don't mention it this will carry on for years.

I'm with PPs who say it's irritating when people shrug off being bad at maths as if it's acceptable.

If somebody was ringing something up incorrectly on the tills at a supermarket, or misusing an Excel function in the office, or not preparing someone correctly before performing surgery, we wouldn't just shrug - we'd accept that they have a responsibility to get it right in order to properly do their job. It's why all jobs come with certain requirements.

I don't see why this stands for everyone apart from primary school teachers in a maths lesson.

I guess what I was trying to ask is if a school has concerns about poor standards for supply teachers is there any way of raising that apart from just not employing them again? Is it a way of avoiding the scrutiny which you would get from a longer contract (I am not in any way insinuating that all supply teachers are poor as many choose it for other reasons).

Primary teachers really do need to be good all rounders, and have good skills in English and maths. if not, maybe a secondary specialism or early years would be a better fit. It’s silly that a drama teacher has to get a grade 4 in maths, the same as a primary teacher

@BungleandGeorge

I guess what I was trying to ask is if a school has concerns about poor standards for supply teachers is there any way of raising that apart from just not employing them again? Is it a way of avoiding the scrutiny which you would get from a longer contract (I am not in any way insinuating that all supply teachers are poor as many choose it for other reasons).

Primary teachers really do need to be good all rounders, and have good skills in English and maths. if not, maybe a secondary specialism or early years would be a better fit. It’s silly that a drama teacher has to get a grade 4 in maths, the same as a primary teacher

You can report your concerns to the agency as a school, but I doubt anything would happen.

Most schools are just grateful to get anyone at the moment.

@twelly

I think sadly there are a lot of primary school teachers whose maths is not sufficient to teach years 5 and 6. To struggle with year 3 work is very worrying. I am appalled by the fact that they do not seem to acknowledge there weaknesses which means they do little to improve . How can we improve children's maths which such inadequacy - no wonder people seek outside tuition

The problem was their use of notation. I have taught most primary age groups. Y5 and y6 are not harder to teach. I found them easier. It’s not the maths that is hard. It is teaching concepts well.

Apologies, as I said before I can’t help it , I’m a primary school teacher 🤷‍♀️ I’m very stupid. My reading skills are just fine, demonstrated by my masters degree, however I was feeling rather cross to be reading yet another unnecessary thread about teachers. If you’re so intelligent you should definitely know how to deal with the situation and know that 3 teachers (including a supply teacher) is clearly not a majority.

It’s when you cannot recognise those mistakes when it has been highlighted and proceed to teach incorrectly, that is the issue

I accept you’ve decided I’m thick, however If you want the best out of your kid’s teacher, calling them out publicly, by holding up their mistake on paper from a 2m distance, is probably not going to get you the outcome you want. You most likely had to speak rather loudly. The fact you were moved on by another member of staff suggests you were being rude. Of course they don’t want you to make a scene in the playground, with a very temporary member of staff.

Phoning the school, and speaking in a polite way, (and then not dragging it out over a public forum) makes more sense. Unless of course you just like feeling superior and having a go at teachers online. I’m sure your kid is very intelligent if that’s what you wanted to hear.

@supermoonrising I agree that every teacher can't be good at teaching all subjects. Personally I am not great at music or languages (just a smattering of French) but I really do think a Primary teacher should have good basic Maths and English at this level. There is no excuse for this!

@Flipflops85.......no no no she must "raise" this " issue" and possibly withdraw super brainy child who is ( as we speak) on the very edge of his seat waiting to pounce with his latest fraction conundrum, from the cess pit which is Primary education in a pandemic.

Terrible! There'd be an almighty uproar if they couldn't spell. It is along the lines of not knowing the difference between there, their and they're.

Thankfully there, their and they’re are taught in year 2.

@Lancrelady80

And then lots of other people chip in with terrible ideas which would confuse children even more!

If that was aimed at me, I have been teaching equivalent fractions to Y3 this week. The example I gave was exactly the type that the extremely well-regarded, extremely widely-used scheme we use suggests we give to the children. All of mine grasped that quite happily, and in the plenary we addressed 1/5 x 5 = 5/25 to show the difference between just multiplying by 5 and finding the equivalent fraction.

I'm utterly confused here. Are you saying 1/5 x 5 =5/25? If so you are wrong. There are no grey areas. It's wrong.

Children have every right to question something they think is incorrect. Are our standards really so low that we expect children to sit listening compliantly to incorrect teaching? All teachers make mistakes occasionally. I would be very happy with the confidence of a child who was certain that something was incorrect. This is not a mistake though. This is a teacher who does not understand basic concepts.
I don’t think maths teaching is good enough in general and some of the discussion on this thread confirm that.
This topic should be approached through children’ s understanding of fractions of a quantity and their understanding of the relationship between the denominator and the numerator. If they are confident with both these concepts, they should recognise 5 out of 25 as a fifth. They should be able to explain why 9/12 is equivalent to 3/4 using this knowledge.There is too much surface teaching ( do the same to the top as the bottom) and too little deep understanding. Once they can explain and quickly spot common equivalents based on known number facts, they should also be able to explain why multiplying the denominator and the numerator by the same number gives an equivalent.
The notation mistakes are terrible and can cause real issues later on. Having done book scrutiny for years, it’s not uncommon.

Sadly my experience of working in mainstream schools was that actual competence in subjects was not half as important as being born into the right families, who you knew, flattering the right people and generally playing politics. It doesn’t surprise me that the competency tests were removed: you used to regularly see posts from those sort of people on here whinging about how their over-cosseted darlings couldn’t pass them, but would make wonderful teachers. Teachers should have something to teach, and making mistakes does matter away from their social circles. It would help though if education was still valued: these people are doing nothing more than pushing the British way to success that they are shown from up high.

Is compliantly a word?

@randomer

Is compliantly a word?

Yes.

It's easier than you would think to get in a twist when teaching maths even if you understand and are qualified. I have found myself in knots like the first teacher a few times. It usually happens because when you are teaching, the maths problem itself is only occupying a small part of your brain. You are also thinking things like: how much time have you been taking for, what is that child doing, is the work you have ready at the right level, must remember to follow up on that problem a parent raised this morning and so on. You ask a child that normally knows how to do something to demonstrate without noticing that the question has changed slightly, nod along while your brain is elsewhere, then suddenly realise you are down a confusing rabbit hole and you have to get back to focus on what to do. Leaving it for a moment and coming back later is sometimes the best thing for all of you.
Best way to imagine it is if your child asks for homework help while you are cooking dinner, organising something on WhatsApp and needed for a meeting in 10 minutes time.

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)
I think this might have been nerves knowing she was potentially being watched by 30 sets of parents

Stealth...God no, absolutely not!

1/5 of 5 WHOLES = 5/25, hence drawing bar models to show. "Look, here are 5 whole bars. We need 1/5 of each bar...mmm, but if we have 5 whole bars, we actually have 25 equal pieces. So 1/5 of 5 wholes = 5/25."

1/5 x 5 would be shown by one whole nar divided into 5 parts. Shade in 1/5, then another etc. So 1/5 x 5 = 5/5, which is 1 whole.

So we looked at that as a misconception and why it was wrong, not blooming well taught it was correct!

Bar, not nar!

I would argue that was one fifth, five times. So five fifths.
I do see your point but you're still saying 1/5 of 5 wholes =5/25. To make that right you need to send it with 1/5 of 5 wholes =5/25 of 5 wholes. Then it's correct.

Yes, agreed. Important to stress the wholes. Otherwise it all goes to pot.

Stacking bars underneath as well, since looking at equivalence rather than multiplication.

It's so much easier to actually do this in person with a flipchart than try to explain in text alone!

I'm utterly confused here. Are you saying 1/5 x 5 =5/25?
If so you are wrong. There are no grey areas. It's wrong

I always find cakes useful when teaching fractions,

If you cut a cake into 5 equal slices each slice is 1/5 of a cake, putting them back together is 1/5 x 5 = 5/5 = 1

If you have another 4 cakes and slice them all into 5 equal slices you have 25 slices ie 5 / 25 but each slice is the same size.

If you cut a cake into 5 equal slices each slice is 1/5 of a cake, putting them back together is 1/5 x 5 = 5/5 = 1

If you have another 4 cakes and slice them all into 5 equal slices you have 25 slices ie 5 / 25 but each slice is the same size.

Huh? Where has 5/25 appeared from? One slice would be 1/25.

I'm not disagreeing wihh that sassh but I think the key is that 1/5 x 5 = 5/25 x5.
Which isn't what's being said.