Keeping kids in from play at lunchtime.

[0gfhty]

I wonder what people think of this. My sons school has something called "times table club" during lunch time play for one day a week. Alll children in year 4 have to go to who don't know all their times tables yet. This hasn't been communicated to the parents but it seems to be true after speaking to some other parents and children. Apparently most of the children in year 4 are in this club. I dont think the children should lose their main playtime for this and if it is most children attending then it indicates to me that their lunch time is being used to teach the curriculum. I wonder what people's views are on this? How would you complain since its more about a general practice and not just my individual child? I have found the teachers to become a little hostile and defensive in the past about anything other than praise even when being polite and approachable.

These clubs exist partly because parents either can't (due to work commitments etc) or don't help their DC, so schools have to step in.

For those saying it is the school's responsibility to teach times tables, they do, but they need parents to help reinforce the concepts. It's a bit like teaching your young child the colours, animals etc when they first start to talk and recognise these things. You don't point out a cow to them once and tell them it is cow and it says moo, and then expect them to remember that. Like reading, times tables need to be repeated not just once for it to stick.

Depending on how old they are I bet many grandparents could rattle them off as they would have been deeply ingrained into them at school.

I think a lot of parents don't realise how crammed the national curriculum is. It should be detailed on your school's website. You will then see how much they have to fit in on each school day

Me too. Found out much later I have dyscalculia. Maybe you do too if they won’t stick despite you understanding the concepts and being able to do the mathematical parts. Arithmetic just isn’t something my brain can handle. Full and useful life, including one year training as an accountant (I passed the exams for Y1, just didn’t enjoy so moved on to something else)
So many on here declaring it’s laziness when they wouldn’t say that if a dyslexic person made errors.

As a teacher have you never heard of dyslexia?! Please never say you are frustrated by children who are unable to learn by rote. My 22 year old, who is very bright, still couldn’t recite her times tables like that!! I’m fairly shocked by your comment

My DD passed her GCSE maths this summer (Yay!!). In the non calculator paper she wrote out a times tables grid at the start so she had it to refer to for the rest of the time. Not at all ideal, but there are work arounds.

For the vast majority who can instant recall of learn times tables if they put the effort in, it is worth it and will make secondary maths easier. But some with SEN can't.

And yet in the real world he could use a calculator. Contrary to what my maths teachers told us everyone has one in their pocket these days. If they can be learned with some repetition, great. For some children (and adults) they can’t and we shouldn’t keep forcing them.
To put it into perspective - I don’t know mine as I’ve said a few times. My memory is excellent in learned Portia’s ‘quality of mercy’ speech from Merchant of Venice at 16 and I still know most of it. Inability to learn tables doesn’t always mean lack of effort. Some just can’t.

I tend to agree with others that extra times table practice one lunchtime a week is a good idea.

Your school may be different, but at our school you can just catch the teacher at the end of the day and ask questions. I would ask about his progress with maths and times tables, explain that he’s mentioned to lunchtime practice and ask how he’s getting on.

It’s tricky for us because our kids go to after-school club but I try and make a point of turning up at normal pick up now and again so that I can talk to the teacher if need be

Another good reason to get rid of pointless testing.
What adjustments are you making for dyscalculic students? (And some dyslexics have similar issues) Or are you making them feel like stupid, lazy failures? That’s how I felt.

I don’t think anyone has said you can’t succeed in life without knowing your tables but for god sake, make his life easier if you can by giving him one less thing to work out while he’s trying to do increasingly difficult maths problems. It’s about reducing cognitive load.

There are reasonable adjustments in the statutory test for pupils with dyslexia etc. And if children are showing problems with learning them, intervention classes like the one OP describes might be useful in identifying whether there is an underlying issue.

But most people who struggle to read, maybe because of dyslexia, don't usually proudly declare they can't read, whereas many parents (usually in front of their children) are quite happy to say they were shit at maths, and that gives the go ahead for children to declare they are shit at maths too and not put the effort in. It is fine to say you struggled, but then try and find ways to help your children. There are so many resources/aids available nowadays to help children with dyslexia etc to access reading, maths etc.

@cardibach reasonable adjustments will be put in place. Many pupils will have a scribe or a reader (depending on the test)

That shows you have no clue about dyscalculia. A scribe or reader won’t help. I can read and write perfectly fluently. I was an English teacher. What I can’t do is manipulate or remember numbers. They make no sense. Drilling me just makes me feel stupid. What are you doing for children like I was? Because I fucking hated maths in primary school and lower secondary. Still got a B at O level, because I used a calculator whenever possible and can do mathematics. It’s arithmetic I can’t do (and remembering phone numbers, and access codes, and estimating, and measuring, and working out time, eg ‘what time is it an hour and 40 mins after 8.25? Not a clue mate).

Dyslexia etc?
No knowledge of dyscalculia, which is different , then?
Just focussed on one issue.
This is very poor.

@cardibach if reasonable adjustments won’t help and a child can’t access the test then I assume they wouldn’t sit the paper as they would be working below standard.

Brilliant. Way to make them feel even more stupid.

The Y4 times table test is a bit ridiculous & an example of over testing which seems to be rampant throughout the English education system.

Wait til you hit Secondary and your kids are called in for extra tuition in the Easter holidays before their GCSE or A level exams!!

Extra help is extra help though & I think it's a sign of a good school if they are prepared to go above & beyond. Teachers giving up lunch breaks to support the children they teach should be applauded surely, not criticised?

@cardibach so what do you suggest whilst these statutory tests are in place? What is your answer?

During normal class time help should be provided, but if you say no amount of reasonable adjustments available during SATS can help what do you suggest?

Don’t rant at me, I don’t make the rules up.

I think that some posters have missed the bit about OP’s son being enthusiastic about maths so he’d probably agree to do some regular practice. It would be a shame if he didn’t remain enthusiastic because not knowing his tables slowed down his learning so harder material became a struggle.

I suggest not having ridiculous over testing.

I think by aged 8 or 9 it is expected that children in English school know their timetables up to at least the 12x table. We are in Scotland and I don't think there is a test here (could be wrong) but both my 8 and 9 year old know them. We do ten minutes practice a day and it's usually on the school run. In the process of helping them learn we did recitation, writing them out and times table rock stars and top marks to check how they were getting on.

You always get people on these kind of posts assuming what kids learn at school is pointless. It is a very useful skill to have and I use them daily in my job. Your child may well go onto a job where they need ro do on the spot calculations too and it helps if you have the basics covered because you can easily spot mistakes.

Sounds like you aren't going to complain and now that you know it is expected I would just try to find 10 minutes here and there to help. It's good that the school has picked up that some kids are struggling with this and giving them a helping hand. They have chosen a method with the least impact on parents and children ie. kids that wouldn't be able to stay afterschool aren't missing out, it doesn't eat into family time, missing one break a week won't affect their overall health and wellbeing etc.

Within the current school system, which parents and individual teachers cannot change, what do you suggest this teacher does, within her already massively over packed curriculum, to ensure their whole class is confident with their time tables. I fully agree that the current system places too much pressure on young children - currently seeing my oldest go through the 11+ prep which is a terrible system which should definitely be abolished. Being told that the work and exams you do now will influence your sucess as an adult at 15/16 when do gcse's is a lot, having this at 9 it's awful - contending with the choices of going to a school where violence is daily occurrence or slogging to pass a test which many adults would struggle with. I agree the system needs an overhaul.

But that's what we have, the choices are accept it or opt out - parents have the option of opting out of British state education by going private or home schooling or moving to a different country, if they feel that strongly about it. Or work to get to a high enough level in goverment that can try to influence policy change around education. Otherwise we need to support our children to do their best within it.

I'm actually shocked at the number of people on this thread admitting to not practicing times tables with their child, like it's optional. Pretty shitty parenting.
As has been said many times so far, you don't need to sit down for half an hour at a time. You can practice verbally on the walk/drive to school, while you're pottering around the house, even reciting 1 lot before bed would help! It's really pathetic making excuses.

If your child wants to be an artist, I’ve got a particularly arty child; they don’t need maths. No one should be forced to do it. With certain kids it just doesn’t click no matter how much you practice. There are many jobs where it is not necesary to use maths:
chef, model, air hostess, cleaner, artist, butcher, actor, psychologist, detective etc etc

Except nowadays you can't get into any of those without GCSE Maths.

This!