Primary school DC can’t do basic Maths

[Cocacolathanks]

Hello wise Mumsnetters,

Three DC in Year 2, Year 4, Year 6.

Since last year, I’ve realised they’re not doing great in Maths and English. They’re all in “top sets” (basically sometimes the teachers split the class into two groups for kids that need extra support or booster sessions etc) and all parent meetings come with excellent feedback.

I’ve suddenly started paying way more attention to their actual work (because my eldest is doing tests and stuff now in prep for SATs) and I am utterly shocked.

Year 6 kid can barely count time/money/fractions - even struggled with column division!

Year 2 kid is still young enough to get by on the basics but Year 4 kid is also struggling with Maths but doing ok in English.

The main issue is Maths - it’s shockingly weak. I feel like I put too much confidence and dependency on the school and didn’t do my part.

How do I fix this? Where do I even start?

CGP Books? Online sessions? Print out the curriculum and start from scratch???

Help oh wise Mumsnetters 🥹❤️

@RingsLikeTinnitis Where I was a governor, every term parents were sent an outline of the curriculum for the term. So every subject had info about what was being taught and suggestions as to how parents could help. Eg some maths needed tables reinforcing etc. There’s absolutely no way any dc in y5 was doing a y3 curriculum (for example) unless they were very much behind and were low achievers. So their curriculum was reinforcing more basic learning. But even then it was linked to the correct curriculum for the year. Some dc really struggle with more challenging work as they move through the curriculum but schools need to put dc into groups and adapt the curriculum for some dc. It’s pretty easy to check what should be taught and then look at DCs books. Ask for evidence of and details about the curriculum for that year. I have to say though, some schools are not transparent about the curriculum and don’t foster good learning partnership relations with parents. It’s not good enough.

Ex maths teacher.

i used the Schofield and sims practice series of books for children who needed help with basics.

it goes up slowly in difficulty and it is easy to see what children are struggling with.

maybe start with book 1 and if they can do all the questions in a page move to section 2 etc. there are answer books.

https://www.schofieldandsims.co.uk/school-programmes/mental-arithmetic/?utm_term=key%20stage%202%20maths%20books&utm_campaign=Sales-Search--02/04/26&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=7039938668&hsa_cam=23711348382&hsa_grp=199587890520&hsa_ad=811564444307&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-295789135329&hsa_kw=key%20stage%202%20maths%20books&hsa_mt=b&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23711348382&gbraid=0AAAAAovrLmQggJ1y8C_ge4Nh8dul8TVEu&gclid=EAIaIQobChMInMy947K2lwMV5rKDBx0oERnHEAAYASAAEgKFO_D_BwE

they are on Amazon and have a lot of word problems

I'd start with finding out where the gaps actually are rather than going back to the beginning of the curriculum, because with three of them that will eat your evenings. Top set and good parents' evening feedback often sit alongside shaky fluency, so you're not imagining it, and it's very fixable.

What worked for us: ten minutes a day on one skill, not an hour at the weekend. Pick the thing that underpins the rest (number bonds and times tables for the younger two, fractions for your Y6) and go from there. TTRS and Numbots are good for fluency, but they won't tell you which topic is wobbly.

For that bit, my DH built mathstutor.me, so take this with a pinch of salt. It has a free assessment that shows where each child is against the curriculum, which saves guessing, and the free tier is 8 exercises a day. Our DS found the points and streaks made him actually want to do it.

Whatever you use, ask the teachers which SATs papers they use for mocks and practise from those. Good luck, it sounds like you're on the right track.

"Meeting expectations" is a pretty average/low standard sadly in some primary schools. As someone posted above, it probably translates to a grade 4 by the time they get to GCSEs which is "enough" as it's a pass, but not great and maybe limit future options for A level and degree choices.

Bright kids should relatively easily hit "beyond expectations" with a bit of support which is where you really should be aiming for.

Primary school level Maths isn't particularly difficult, so a bright kid should be getting very good marks on homework, tests, etc., i.e. over 75% if not higher.

Numerate fluency at primary age will be a massive advantage for starting secondary school when they start working on more complex things like algebra, solving equations, etc., especially a sound knowledge of times tables and prime numbers to make equation solving so much easier, plus they'll end up having to learn "long division" and "long multiplication" anyway, so no harm in teaching them that sooner rather than later as the primary school "block" method is "taught out of them" at secondary school!

Many children now struggle with clocks and money as they are not used much in daily life anymore.
White rose is a good place to start. Can you meet or email the teacher/maths lead and ask for ideas to support them.

My DS is also in year 6. He sat practice SATs papers at school a few weeks before half term. Is this something your child’s school does? It’s a good way to gauge if they’re on track for the SATs and any knowledge gaps. My son recently passed the 11+ for our area and lots of the content he revised for it, hadn’t been covered at school.

It's not been covered because it's not on the curriculum or is generally covered on the Y6 curriculum later in the year. It's a massive issue with the fairness of the 11+, not an indication that the school isn't teaching what it should.

Definitely look up Joyful Maths with Ruth - I'm a maths teacher and really rate her stuff. She has loads of online stuff cheap or free. Avoid anything that puts timing pressure on as we now know this actually makes it harder for kids to learn.

Having two older children also pass the 11+ and attend the same primary as my 10 year old, they were not taught the content even in year 6. Some other local schools covered it in year 5 and 6. So I’d say the unfairness is that some schools teach to that level and some don’t.

I think its just how schools are. Because they removed levels they dont need to do much till y6.
have a look at what the schools ks2 sats results are for meeting and exceeding.

The result /40 is likely the arithmetic test. My dd did worse than i expected with only 28-29/40.
Schools only need them to get a scaled score of over 100. But.. that only translates to a 4 at gcse. With the national average around 104 being around a 5.
We had both my kids teachers in y6 being a bit well they arent likely to get exceeding. And its because other kids do the work faster so get more practise.
Get the y6 to do a sats maths set of papers and you will see where to work on first. But the quicker you make improvements the more use the rest of the rest of y6 revision will be.
Mine is already getting over the 100 in all the maths/spag and reading.
personally i dont like white rose its written in an odd way. I also dont like how maths is done nowadays because it rather covers a topic then they dont see again for a whole year. Instead they should at minimum have end of year of ideally term tests and go over what they cant do. Its why the SATs are needed. I think a lot more kids wouldnt be able to tell the time or multiply

Well schools are pretty much obliged (not technically if an academy, but in practice they are by Ofsted) to follow the National Curriculum. It is vanishingly rare not to and there is simply not time to teach much, if any, additional content. I'd be dubious that these other schools, that your children didn't attend, taught outside the national curriculum. If you look online at unit plans, you'll see Y6 classes are covering almost exactly the same content across different schools. I teach in a different county to my child and can reel off her spelling words before she tells me because they're so predictable, or guage where my class is compared to hers in maths because we're doing the same small steps within a maths unit usually within days of each other.

Well done to your son for passing! My DC has passed for one of the schools they applied for but we’re outside catchment area so will see what happens come March.