No Shit Sherlock : Supportive parents do more than good schools to boost children's exam results

[TalkinPeace2]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19923891

You don't say ....

In my era noble we were allowed to use a calculator for all of both O level and GCSE (or log tables or slide rule - and I could use all of them, but guess which I chose!).

30% calculator for GCSE if you choose the right syllabus these days, and the numbers are easy enough that instant recall of tt definitely not necessary for it. C1 is the only non calculator A level paper and again instant recall not essential.

I must say gelo, nothing personal, but I'm glad ideas based on your convictions are being gradually eroded in primary schools. Not quite enough though. It's still very variable. Posters on this thread have indicated how variable it is.

Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales
the students in question already had stacks of GCSEs A Levels and 2:1 degrees
but logic testing by mental maths seemed beyond many of them

"Heck, some of them might even design tills themselves one day. Not going to happen if they need a till to work out 2 x 1.20"

Why ever not Brycie? That's exactly my point, I was always rather useless at arithmetic, was never forced to learn tt, never actually needed them either but ended up programming as a career. Never actually programmed a till, but would a telephone exchange count?

OK so I could manage 1.20x2 in my head (though give me 3 different figures & I'll certainly reach for the calculator), but probably so could the teenager - thing is they have to use the till. It's the way retail works. So it doesn't really matter if they can or can't.

I'll agree that tt should be taught Brycie, but for those who really struggle with them, don't assume that none of them can do higher maths, or get by in numerate careers.

Instant recall might not be strictly necessary, but I've never figured out how people who don't know their times tables could factorise. C1 normally has some bloody awful fractions in it too, just for fun.

I don't assume anything of the sort. When have I said that? It's just not relevant. My concern is putting children off maths by introducing them to more complex maths when they don't have the arithmetical basis to enjoy and thrive with it.

One problem maths teachers have in my experience, is getting kids to use calculators when they are available.

Every time I mark exams with a calculator paper half the kids will have tried to do a tricky percentage question by hand, or bodged a calculation because they didn't just stick it into their calculator. Every bloody time.

Sorry talkinpeace I ignored. Thanks. It makes you sound tremendously brainy

I seem to remember a lot of trial and error and writing lists of additions and intelligent guessing noble, but I never had to do exams without a calculator so it wasn't often. Sounds as if C1 may be a little tougher than I thought from what you say.

I just can't do % on a calculator. Just can't. Find it easier by hand. Aren't we all different.

Brycie, you seem to be extrapolating your experiences with your DS to the entire education system.

In my experience most kids know their times tables to some extent. They might get a bit rusty occasionally, but generally they are there.
The kids that don't know their times tables tend to not know a lot of other stuff too. There are not hordes of bright kids out there otherwise struggling in maths due to a times tables shaped gap in their knowledge.

:-)
the most important maths skill is to have a mental awareness of the approximate size of numbers

456 x 414
cannot do it in my head but it will be more than
400 x 400 = 100 x 100 x 4 x 4 = 160,000
and less than 500 x 500 = 100 x 100 x 5 x 5 = 250,000

9% of £34.50
well 10% will be 3.45
1% will be 35p
so 9% will be 3.10

Why would you say that? I could say the same about you and your children - because your experience of drilling is certainly not what other posters have been talking about. But I haven't because I assumed you'd thought beyond that. It would have been nice to have the same respect.

I mentioned him once as an afterthought - I've mentioned far more times the problems with innumeracy and illiteracy in general being an indictment of the current way of working. I have another child who loved all the different ways of multiplying and uses a Chinese grid for long x. So?

This isn't about my children, or yours, because they have supportive, involved, intelligent parents. It's about the children who have none of that and who will be left behind by middle class assumptions about home support, and not boring them, or being oppressive, or not fun. They're being let down.

Talking yy I can do mental percentages easier than calculator percentages. I must be such an old crock.

My exams were all calculator based too, gelo. My mental maths has become an awful lot better since I became a maths teacher in a system that doesn't rely on them. It's still nowhere near as good as my mum's who never even had a slide rule!

There are some percentage questions that surely are easier with a calc? When the numbers aren't nice it has got to be easier to type in 0.575*126 than work out 57.5% of 126 by hand? (although looking at it, that's not too bad, but you know what I mean!)

What's my experience of drilling, Brycie?

I'm saying that you seem to be extrapolating your son's experience to claim that kids are regularly forced into doing maths they can't understand because they don't know their tables. You seem to be claiming that primaries don't teach tables but leave it up to the parents.

As far as I'm aware, and in my experience as a maths teacher, primaries teach tables (extra practice at home is always a bonus) and kids tend to be ok with them by the time I see them in secondary.

Yes, I am claiming that, and my children were in whole classes, whole years and whole schools where that happened, and and other posters have reported that's still happening, and the NC only requires 10 X 10 by the age of 11. Are you telling me that all schools all drill and never ask parents to drill? Because if you are, the conversation ends, as it's obviously not true.

No, I didn't say that. I said that primary schools in my experience do teach and practise times tables. You seem to claim that it is left up to parents to teach their kids times tables.

I've never said that primary schools don't ask parents to practise them with their kids. Of course they do, as I have said, it is probably the most effective way to personalise that particular learning.

You said that your parents didn't do this and other posters said that their parents did. My mum certainly did with me. Parental support with learning times tables isn't new.

Yes I am claiming that happens.

I also think that even when schools drill somewhat, parents should never need to practise times tables with their children. If they need to, it means they aren't being taught properly at school. If they want to, that's fine, but if they were taught properly in school then the parents could use the time to do lots of problem solving books, or move on to algebra, or something else. There should be no NEED for parents to practise tts. Because if it's needed, then it's not being learned in school, and if it's not being learned in school, then too many children will lose out.

In fact that's not an "also think" - it's my main point.

It's the idea that parental help is lovely has been translated to parental help is essential. It should never be essential in an education system in any society that wants to offer equality of opportunity to everyone, whatever the circumstances of their birth. To make the basics of education dependent on parental circumstance is a terrible social trap.

an society

yes sure [stoopid]

Kids don't need to practise times tables at home because schools haven't taught them properly, kids need to practise times tables in order to get quicker at remembering them and to not forget them. Any practice is a bonus. It's not just kids. I did Nintendo brain training for a while and bloody hell my mental arithmetic speeds improved.

And you're suggesting that the kids spend ages practising times tables at school so that parents can do advanced algebra with them at home; wouldn't it be far better to do the practising at home (which is relatively straight forward) and save the advanced algebra for the time freed up at school?

If they're going to forget them they haven't been taught properly. The whole point of times tables is instant recall - there is no other point to them at all. Practice isn't a bonus, practice is thoe whole point. Saying "here they are" and running through them a bit isn't teaching them. Of course it doesn't fit in with a higher view that teaching is something much more tremendously interesting. But this is essential. Children need to know them in order to thrive with more difficult maths. If parents need to practise with them then they don't know them. If they don't know them, children with unsupportive parents will be left behind. That's not fair.

Saving gelo's face: most children need to know them to thrive with more diffciult maths - and every child should have the chance of thriving with more difficult maths, so let's not take the chance that they might be one of the unusual children who will eventually be able to do pure and applied maths without knowing their tts.