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?

[quote Theydidntwin]@DdraigGoch, I think you mean adding/add rather than multiplying/multiply?

When adding fractions:
Get a common denominator
Add (only) the numerators[/quote]
Yes, just turn the symbol 45 degrees.

@Carouselfish

This is why I became a high school English teacher. Maths is a foreign language to me and even if I learn it one day I forfeit it the next. We're asking primary teachers to be competent to expert in all subjects but the reality is, some serious googling gets done at the start of a scheme of work and teachers are going to have their weak points. It drives me potty that two primary teacher friends of mine get basic grammar incorrect. I've also seen apostrophes out of place in the staff room of a private high school. What I'm saying is, no teacher is great at everything. Be glad if they're great at something. If you're better, make up the shortfall at home.

PS. GPs do a ton of googling too. I once got told to come back next week after he'd had a chance to look it up online.

But this is something an 8 year old is learning, it isn't advanced maths

@DdraigGoch, like making 8 into infinity?

I find it odd that your son has encountered 3 of these teachers in the last few months. The overwhelming majority of primary teachers, junior teachers especially, are numerate to at least a reasonable level.

If I was to stand up in a Y3 class and say 3/4 of 120 was 30 I’d have at least 5 able and confident children correct me immediately. Not one child who I then proceed to argue with. It all sounds very odd. Is it a small private school?

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.

@ThreeTimesThree, hurray to your son for knowing that multiplication can be thought of as repeated addition.

[quote Theydidntwin]@DdraigGoch, like making 8 into infinity? [/quote]
No, that's 90°. Or twelve-fifths as this teacher may prefer.

OP, are the teachers at all related to Diane Abbot, Natalie Bennet or Jacob Zuma? Each of those politicians has come amiss where numbers are concerned.

Bizarre that you encountered three such teachers who are incompetent at maths.
I would have a handful, if not more, who would have picked me up on these questions in my year 3 class.

@themalamander It appears you lack in manners.

The last example could just be bad explanation, depending on whether she was teaching probability (1/2 a chance and 1/2 a chance is multiply, so 11 over 22 so 1/4 overall chances, say of scoring two twos on a four sectioned spinner), whereas 1/2+1/2 is definitely 2/2 so a whole? And knowing that 5 1/5s is 5/25 is useful.

I'd say this sounds unlucky to a surprising degree, but then I teach maths to working adults who don't know how to change 2/6 into a decimal with a calculator. Plus I did some classroom shadowing recently and during a task making a timeline, the teacher was insistent that 0 went in the middle, and wouldn't understand when I pointed out that that only worked if you added the same amount of dates a.d. and b.c, or used different spacing. Cue a class of very confused 9 year olds when the instructions given led to no room for the 10+ a.d. dates.

I think it's bad luck you've encountered three teachers like this in a short space of time. I've been primary teaching 12 years and probably only come across one teacher who's maths skills weren't very good; but they were aware and would always double-check things.

I didn't realise they'd done away with the QTS skills tests. It's a shame as you really did need a certain level of skill to pass but doable, even for someone like me who'd stopped Maths after a C at GCSE a decade before. Many a time on the TES forums people would bemoan the fact they'd tried 6 times to pass and it was unfair they couldn't train to be a teacher without them.

Trouble is their all so young and inexperienced nowadays. Schools favour them because they cost less.

They’re 😆

I despair that any adult who feels qualified to comment on maths could ever think that when the supply teacher writes 1/2 x 2 she should be writing 1/2 x 2/2 (ie multiply both top and bottom by 2) , giving 1/2 = 2/4. 1/5 x 5/5 = 5/25, and so on. How can you not know that 2/2 is 1 and not 2? I could and did teach a six year old with learning difficulties that if the numerator and denominator were the same then the number was 1.

PS. GPs do a ton of googling too. I once got told to come back next week after he'd had a chance to look it up online.

The human body is a lot more complex than the basic maths outlined above, GPs will have things thrown at them that they can't possibly be expected to know. It's reasonable to expect primary teachers to be numerate at such a basic level.

I appreciate primary teachers have to know about a lot of things, and will need to educate themselves on topics just before they teach them. However I am shocked that people are allowed to teach primary when they can't do even primary level maths. Maths is a requirement.for so many jobs/other qualifications that if children are taught the basics incorrectly it could affect their maths at a later stage.

Poor English is another one that used to annoy me - spelling mistakes in the comments in the children's books/letters home and incorrect use of apostrophes.

A friend of mine is doing a teaching assistant qualification. Interesting that teaching assistants still have to pass English and maths tests when the teachers don't .

My DD teacher is ok with maths but seems to think something is pronounced say-ink.

I teach and I'm hopeless at fractions so when I have to teach them I have all my examples ready and have checked, double and triple checked them beforehand. It's like a mental block but there's no excuse for getting them wrong when teaching, it's ridiculous as I can do every other area of maths.

I must admit that I came on ready to defend the teacher.

I teach and those live lessons delivered during lockdown will not be indicative of her everyday teaching. I was excruciatingly aware that 30 entire families were watching my lessons and ready to critique them. I knew mistakes would be discussed on the class whatsapp, and every lesson felt like a high-stakes observation. I was ready to say that a mistake under those conditions would induce panic in most people.

However, you have detailed too many mistakes, that still persist now, and she is worryingly unable to accept these even when they are pointed out.

I would email the Head. She won't appreciate it of course, but it will lead to more Maths observations and the support and training she needs.

My daughter's year 4 teacher didn't understand basic maths either. Fractions were a mystery to her. Unfortunately my daughter adored this teacher and thought she could do no wrong...

I would say something, particularly about the supply person.
Regardless of their qualifications, if the teacher isn't able to teach maths correctly, they should not be brought into the school to teach maths.

Repeated dodgy lessons could seriously screw up a child's understanding of a topic. It is fine for your DS, he knew what he was being told was wrong, but others who are less able/confident will go away and be confused.

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.

So, when the supply teacher writes 1/2 x 2 she should be writing 1/2 x 2/2 (ie multiply both top and bottom by 2) , giving 1/2 = 2/4. 1/5 x 5/5 = 5/25, and so on.
The examples would be clearer if they didn’t all use the denominator as the multiplier, for example 1/2 = 3/6 (x by 3/3, which is equivalent to x 1/1 or 1).
No, the difference between 1/22/2 and 1/2 2 is not a matter of presentation, it is a mistake by teacher.

OP, we had similar - with the ruler exercises the teacher measuring lengths from 1, not from 0 on the ruler. Even worse, when pointed out the mistake, she kept insisting that it was a change in approach since I was in school. Even worse, many parents went with that explanation, as - "oh yeah, it's been years since we did maths".

@forinborin

*So, when the supply teacher writes 1/2 x 2 she should be writing 1/2 x 2/2 (ie multiply both top and bottom by 2) , giving 1/2 = 2/4. 1/5 x 5/5 = 5/25, and so on. The examples would be clearer if they didn’t all use the denominator as the multiplier, for example 1/2 = 3/6 (x by 3/3, which is equivalent to x 1/1 or 1).* No, the difference between 1/22/2 and 1/2 2 is not a matter of presentation, it is a mistake by teacher.

Actually it is both. Saying 1/2 x 2 = 2/4 is an error.

But, if the examples all use the same figure for the multiplier as the denominator it is also confusing

1/2 x 2/2 = 2/4
1/3 x 3/3 = 3/9
1/4 x 4/4 = 4/16
are all correct in themselves, but might lead pupils to think that the multiplier has to be the denominator, so throwing in
1/3x5/5 = 5/15
2/7x4/4= 8/28
makes things clearer

If she was teaching equivalent fractions she is correct but she hasn't explained that by x both top and bottom by 5 you are actually x by 5/5 which =1