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 ....

Re your last point: this is entirely the problem - an education system based around "middle class" or privileged values and needs. Practising is boring, supportive parents can do it at home. We can get on with advanced stuff in class which the children of supportive parents will manage easily. Never mind the others - it's all the parents' fault anyway.

And what's all this about "ages" anyway? How long do you recommend a mum does on tts after school? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Do it in school.

If they're going to forget them they haven't been taught properly.

Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. I'm a maths teacher, I use my times tables every day and yet sometimes, still, I have to think carefully about 96. Are you going to claim that my school taught all my times tables well apart from 96 because even now I don't always have instant recall of it?
If I didn't use my tables every day, I suspect that I would have even poorer recall of 9*6.

If they are going to forget them, it doesn't mean that they didn't ever know them.

Schools do practise them. But the more practice you can do, the better. And parents can help here.

How long do you recommend a mum does on tts after school?
A mum? I'm secondary, I recommend the kid does it!

I thought you were talking about personalised help earlier? How much time for a child then? Why not do it in school?

What you are talking about doesn't need parental support. The occasional forgetting is entirely different to not having a functional recall. If parents/ children / whatever are asked to practise times tables at home every day or every other day, that's not for an occasional forgetting. That's for a functional recall. And if home practice is needed for functional recall, you are letting children down. Do it in school. Just - do it in school.

Erm, the point of personalised help is that it varies from child to child.

And that's what makes it so difficult to do in a school. If you play to the needs of the middle you bore the ones who already know them and lose the ones who struggle with memory. If you play to the needs of the bottom, which is what you seem to be suggesting, you bore pretty much the whole class.

That was my response to you saying "the child does it when earlier you were talking about the value of home practise being personalised help. You can hardly blame me for wondering which you mean.

It's not playing to the needs of the bottom. I hardly think the people of Barnes would march in the streets if the local state primary offered a more traditional and academically rigorous curruculum. Good lord, they might even reconsider the money they spend on prep fees.

home practice of course

I have to go. But everything just sounds like an excuse to me. I see no reason why tt practice can't happen in school from as early as possible, before they learn about multiplication, twice, three, four times a day, to make sure that children who have no support at home have good instant recall. Tell me please. What on EARTH is the problem with that.

I think teachers just get bored with it. It's like nurses not wanting to feed patients - it's not the fun part, it's just basic and boring and anyone can do it. Except of course - they don't.

Brycie you have an idee fixe.

What happens next, when all the kiddies can recite their tt backwards? Does th emagic fairy fly through the window and change the other 99.99999999% of their llives? Or do they remain the same, with the same life chances, except that they can recite the times tables?

Brycie, by secondary school we do not send home work to parents, we give it to the kids. There are plenty of resources out there that a secondary school child can use to practise times tables in a manner that they can personalise themselves.

And once again, times tables practise does happen in primary schools.

Brycie - you're Michael Gove aren't you?

Harking back to them good ol days of a rigorous academic curriculum after which children went on to whatever rigid social strata occupation was available - EVEN THOUGH THEY KNEW THEIR GRAMMAR AND TTS.

Well for what it's worth I am totally anti-Gove and do like many aspects of the modern curriculum, however I do think that we have lost sight of some aspects of the traditional curriculum that were actually in my opinion necessary and fundamental.

We joke sometimes, even with the teachers themselves, that they get to do all the fun stuff with our children whilst we get to nail them down to learn timetables, spellings and handwriting practice. Although it is meant lightheartedly, I think there is a grain of truth that we have lost the balance a little and should review that balance for the sake of ALL children.

I can't do much art & craft, cooking etc at home as we are lumbered with reading, reading comprehension, spellings, timetables, handwriting, etc -if school picked up on some of this I could enjoy more fun at home with my children!!!

That's not a criticism of the teachers or schools in general, it's just one aspect that I think we ought to review as a community - after all it's all about assessing what works and doesn't work for the majority of people.

The only thing that I've ever done with any of my DC at home during their primary years is reading, and only until they were secure readers themselves. Very occasionally spelling too, in the early days. But no tables or comprehension or handwritng practice. Mine haven't had homework from school until secondary though - perhaps that's the difference? Or is this parental input purely voluntary?

Spellings and times tables are good homework in that they are boring things that require endless frequent repetition and are not beyond the supervision of all but the very dimmest parents.

I actually like "repetition" homework, which is the sort my DD gets. Parents can't cheat and do it for the children and it really isn't onerous to get children to write out their spellings three times or their tables three times and then to test them.

Heaven save me from "projects" at home...

I'm not off the scale dim Bonsoir but I simply opted out of timestables and everything else beyond reading. Or I didn't opt in - not sure which. I went to several of the DCs friends houses where times tables were made into collages on kitchen walls. My neighbour also used to make her very advanced 4yo say times tables very loudly in the garden. I think the combination of these in your face approaches to timestables put me off.

All those I know who went to prep schools had 'prep school chanting' every day re: tables. Most got very secure in time. I think there should be short mental maths sessions and chanting every day in schools - you could even make it fun. Anything else at home etc a bonus rather than a 'need to do'.

I completely agree Hamishbear very well put. Now I'm going to read the rest of the replies.

Hully: "What happens next?" Ask Noble, she's a maths teacher and she'll be drilling her son to within an inch of his life. I explained it a million times. What happens next is that the children approach more complex maths with confidence. They don't think - I can't do fractions because I can't work out an LCD for example. It's not for the sake of "parrotting times tables" (stupid phrase") it's for what they do, it's a tool, and it opens the door to maths beyond arithmetic.

Noble: "There are plenty of resources out there that a secondary school child can use to practise times tables in a manner that they can personalise themselves." Way too late. Not necessary. I am talking about primary, not secondary. You of all people know the importance of times tables Noble. That's why you'll be drilling your son. You know what they do and what they're for. Why deny it to children with less supportive parents than you. Why?

Yes, Orangeberries, yes, yes, yes a million times. Bonsoir your post is insulting. There are children whose parents are badly educated, unfortunate, overworked, underprivileged, poor, exhausted, feckless, incapable. Whatever you choose. Unwilling even. Why should the children suffer? It is not difficult to practise tts early in primary so that all children have a secure command. It should and must be done.

Hully is that another smear? I've actually come up with a really good and straightforward way - if not original - of helping children with unsupportive parents. You've come up with "dismantling the structures of society". If you don't care about the fact that children are being unnecessarily binned because middle class children can practise at home then that's entirely up to you. I'm not with you.

And by the way it's not just about tts. It's about all essential work which should be done in school and not sent home.

Brycie, you are being a bit unfair now, with 'I am talking about primary, not secondary.'

You asked a secondary school teacher how much time they would tell a 'mum' to practise times tables after school. I pointed out I was secondary and would tell the kid to practise them. You then moaned that it was too late by secondary. There's not a lot I can do about that is there? As for how long a primary school kid should practise them, my original answer still stands. It varies from child to child, that's the whole point of personalising it. Getting all the kids to all do the same amount of practice at school is not personalising it.

If you are insistent on asking me questions and dragging me into conversations (e.g. ask Noble why teachers have desks in groups, then when I said 'I dunno, mine are in rows' snottily saying 'well yes, I'd expect rows in secondary') then will you stop trying to pour all your bitterness at what you think primary school teachers uniformly do at my doorstep.

Well I'm not a primary or secondary teacher and I have an opinion, I assumed that as you are posting here you would have an opinion too I've said for about a million years from the beginning of the thread I'm talking about primary. Why did you even start talking to me about it? Why would you say I'm living in a dream world (which you did say) if you have no opinion and no clue on the issue yourself? Fine, you have no opinion on what I'm talking about. I don't care - but why are you talking to me about it?

Unfair? People have been a bit horrible to me sometimes. I haven't been unfair at all.

I mean, if I was a secondary maths teacher I would have VERY strong opinions on children coming to me without knowing their times tables. Obviously you don't, you don't think it's a problem, you can drill your son, you'll be alright Jack.

Now that might be unfair, but what a waste of hot air all round.

Yes, I know you're talking primary, you know I'm a secondary teacher, so when you ask me what I would say, then why the fuck do you think I would answer as if I were a primary school teacher, which I'm not, and have no experience of, so you might as well ask any other person on the thread. And my answer is still 'it varies' which is probably as good as you'd get.

Why would you say I'm living in a dream world

You have moaned on and on about this phrase in this thread. I absolutely stand by every word that I said in that post. It's pretty obvious why I said it, and it's because it's true.

To quote myself

Brycie, you're in a dream world if you think that stopping schools sending work home would stop kids of academic and supportive parents getting ahead.

Look at the massive market for revision guides, phonics books, kumon maths tuition etc etc.

At least if the school sends work home there's a chance that some of the more disadvantaged kids might do something educational when they come home from school.