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?

Oh, and obviously academies etc can employ unqualified teachers if they wish (and sometimes do because it's cheaper)

@LaLaLandIsNoFun you’re welcome!

Speak to the Head.

I’m not great at maths myself so absolutely need to trust teachers to get this right- I’m not sure I’d have even spotted the mistakes, so you should raise it.

Definitely raise it with the head. The maths teaching at my daughter's primary school become very poor in year 6 when they had a student teacher taking some lessons and I complained and had a meeting with the head (only time I had complained in her time at primary). My daughter did lots of maths at home to improve her ability and confidence, Maths Factor etc and that really helped.

As a primary school teacher and maths specialist, it's possible all of these were lack of understanding but to me it looks more like what happened was:
A - teacher realised the worksheet she had was wrong and hadn't got different work so moved on. Sadly this can happen, teachers don't always check each question when they're planning. Easier to fix jn a classroom as we'd just write our own questions on the board/get the TA to print something else off. Not easy to remedy over remote learning.
B - teacher was modelling making a mistake, by only working out the unit fraction, a common child's misconception. I often use this as a teaching tactic - get something wrong on purpose, get children to unpick what I've done wrong, supports reasoning learning and breaks down understanding. If it were this, its good teaching practice not bad.
C - she just wasn't clear she was scaling rather than multiplying. I agree this needs clearing up but cover teachers are barely ever actual teachers now and its very common for teachers to have to undo their teaching when they are back at school.

So it doesn't sound worthy of contacting head to me. The vast majority of primary school teachers do understand this maths and teach it well. As this was a different person in each case, it doesn't show their continued misunderstanding, just either they made a mistake on one day, or more likely the reasons I've given above and your son hasn't realised.
The fact your son is good at maths shows he has had good maths teaching.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl
It’s not been attractive for a while. I toddled off fifteen years ago after just one year in the classroom. The curriculum is excessively prescriptive and micro-managed. There’s no joy in teaching, they might as well just get AI robots.

@eatsleepread

Your son is in the right with regards to the Maths, but he sounds like a precocious wee smart arse. And a pain in one at that! I'd never encourage this level of arrogance in my child.

You sound pathetically jealous of an 8 year old.

@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.

Amazed at the number of people who are saying she was right if you assume she meant this or that.
Maths is a precise subject, you can't just rely on everyone 'knowing what you really mean'.

@Stophammertime123

Excuse me? This woman is teaching my child, who now goes around saying, "mum, pass the remote to myself please." He got that from his teacher whi lacks basic language skills. She can talk how she likes at home but if she's going to teach my child a mangled form of English then she can deal with being corrected.

My dc's year 6 teacher didn't know how to work out the angles in shapes. I told her how. It was clear they still didn't understand. Worryingly they are now head of the school. Hopefully that means they never get to teach maths again.

And it isn't arrogant to want to be taught correct facts rather than rubbish

If the teacher was teaching equivalent fractions, it sounds like you and your son have both mis-interpreted what she was asking the children do. She was asking them to multiply both the numerator and the denominator by the same number to create a new equivalent fraction- not multiply the fraction as a a whole! She may have explained it badly or written it in a way that could have been misinterpreted but she is not wrong.

Friend of mine did a year as a TA in a primary school and said she often had a bit of a dilemma about what to do when the teacher told the kids something that was blatantly wrong - the example that sticks in my mind was when one told a class that 10% of 100 is 1. She didn't feel that she could publicly undermine the teacher in class, but it was a school where the teachers were very "us and them" about TAs so she didn't get much of a chance to have a word about errors outside the classroom either. That was one of the reasons why she didn't stick with it.

It's the = (equals) sign making it confusing

the sign for "equivalent to" is three horizontal parallel lines - my laptop doesn't have this

This is very basic Maths. I would expect any teacher to manage this, whether they were Maths specialists or not. In fact, I am very surprised how many posters here think the teacher is correct. I would absolutely mention it to the head. This teacher shouldn't be teaching Maths if she is this poor at it.

The fact your son is good at maths shows he has had good maths teaching.

Or far more likely given the examples of consistently poor teaching, he’s probably taught himself maths as my DS has done since aged about 6.

Don’t lament the removal of the maths skills test too much. When I did it, it was mainly statistics- based, for reading data sheets about pupils’ progress, and whether you had ordered enough buses to fit all the kids on. Not much on fractions or long division.

I am a primary school teacher myself and I would report that. It’s not good enough.

@Killahangilion did you read the rest of my post where I explained the very likely reasons for what the child has reported?
As a primary maths consultant, IMO this isn't evidence of consistently poor teaching.

@PussGirl

It's the = (equals) sign making it confusing

the sign for "equivalent to" is three horizontal parallel lines - my laptop doesn't have this

I don't understand. 1/2 x 2 is not equivalent to 2/4 either

@StealthPolarBear

Amazed at the number of people who are saying she was right if you assume she meant this or that. Maths is a precise subject, you can't just rely on everyone 'knowing what you really mean'.

I am also quite surprised at the comments about that teacher got it right, just used a different notation. You do indeed get to use some poetic license in maths with respect to notation, but it usually happens at the researcher level, when you are talking to other researchers in the field.

For those interested in the requirements for trainees, I am a trainee primary teacher (career changer) and had to take a maths test as part of the admissions process which I assume was set either by the University or the SCITT (placement school hub).

During the year of my course, I am required to pass about a dozen online maths papers (although there is no-one monitoring me). I've also had maths lectures & workshops with the University and was required to write a report on maths teaching and assessment. At school, I have had several maths training sessions, plus regular observations of more experienced teachers across the year groups - and of course my maths teaching is observed every few weeks.

I was pretty confident in primary-level maths anyway but have certainly developed my understanding of concepts and teaching methods across the year, and feel well-equipped to start my ECT years.

[quote supermoonrising]@SatyajitRayFan
There are certainly no excuses in this instance. But it is also symptomatic of a wider problem in primary schools, Why are we getting people who are not very good at an important subject to teach it to children? If you’re looking for a violin teacher, you wouldn’t prioritize the one who dabbled for at it for five years as a student. You’d want someone who can play it at a very competent level.[/quote]
I totally agree.
I would also go a step further and question how candidates for teaching are being sifted if the ones selected don't even have a basic level of maths. Does the education of our young not matter at all? Or are we so complacent because the education is "free" (which it's not as the salaries and pensions are payed for by the taxpayers)? We wouldn't be so cavalier if we were actually transferring money from our bank accounts, would we? It's an absolute disgrace if teachers in any school in a developed nation like the UK don't even have a basic knowledge of maths.

Many moons ago, one of my primary teachers told everyone that Elizabeth I was Elizabeth II's mother!
There are no excuses for poor teaching, preparation or research. Especially these days when the internet can explain it all for you.