yr 2 expectations!

[sweetheart]

My dd had some maths homework tonight which was adding various numbers which equalled anything up to 100.

We were given no guidance on how they have been taught to add up and yet again homework has caused a row in this house.

Am I being stupid - should dd really be able to do sums like this - she had no idea and ended up in tears!

The homework in year 2 is normally adapted to suit the childs ability.
The homework does sound pretty tricky, so I would have thought your DD was in one of the more able groups in class to receive such homework.
Maybe it would be an idea for you to go & have a word with her teacher, as it is not right that it was not explained properly & that your DD is getting upset.

Every child was given the same pirece of work. I know their spellings are adapted depending on the group they are in but their homework is always the same for each child.

I am planning on speaking to the teacher but this is the 3rd time I have been in and we're only a few weeks into the term. We have already been told that if dd needs extra help there is none available which I was really cross about!

When I asked her how they had been taught to add up sums she had absolutly no idea. I already asked the teacher if she could send home guidelines on how parents should approach the homework and she said she'd try but she is very busy! I'm sick of getting excuses from her whilst my childs education suffers!

Was she expected to do it on a worksheet, if so, what did the worksheet look like?
When DD was in year 2, we covered some adding up to 100 using multiples of 10. Maybe this is what your DD should be doing?

first bit was a dinosar crossword and the second bit was a pyramid type thing. It wasn't multiples of 10 there were sums like

20+37
17+8
33+30

etc etc

Oh that doesn't sound good.
I worked as a TA in year 2 for a couple of years & my DS1 is in year 2 now, & I know that in our school there are 3 different sheets of homework that go out each week. There is one for the challange groups, a slightly easier one for the core & an easier one still for the modified group.
It seems very wrong that the same piece of work is going home to each & every child. They also should have explained it properly.
Have you got a parents evening soon?
You are well within your rights to have a word with the teacher, or write a note in your DD's homework book.
It is not right that it is causing this upset.
My DS is in year 2 & I don't think he would manage homework like this.

OK, thinking about it I actually might be wrong - the homework looked the same from a distance - they all had dinosars on - but I suppose the number could have been different (although I doubt it as the teacher is too busy to prepare more than 1 set of homework and it has always been the same in the past)

The first week they had spellings home they hadn't even covered the sounds in the words until the day of the spelling test - the teacher said they had been a bit behind (being that it was the beginning of term!)and that they would get sorted in the next few weeks!

I'm going to go and speak to her in the morning but i get the feeling I'll be told (again) how very busy she is!

At least I know now that my dd isn't the only 6 year old that wouldn't be able to do these kind of additions!

It doesn't sound good if she is always too busy. Does she have a TA working with her?
I work in a school (I was in year 2 last year) and the teacher always made time to speak to parents if they were at all concerned.
If she expects the parents to support the children at home, then she should instruct the parents the best way they can do this.

DS is in yr 2 and his maths homework is much easier than the example you gave. He is quite good at maths.

ds1 is in year 2 and we also have arguements about his maths homework. As far as we can tell they haven't actually been taught a method to add or subtract - they don't do the columns with units, tens and hundreds and have no idea how they come out with the right result - a lot of counting on fingers I reckon. We have parents evening tomorrow and I'm going to ask the teacher, but talking to parents with older children - basically you just teach them yourself using the old methods. Rather frustrating, we have already taught him to read I feel and this is in a school that scores really highly on the SATS. Maybe it is all down to parents teaching the basics.

My yr 2 child has been taught this sort of thing at school, my yr 1 child is learning it too.

With us, when the homework looks too hard I'd just put a note in the book saying X found it too hard this week. And if it seems too easy I'd say X found this easy so we did YYY instead.

In my (rapidly expanding as my dds have been in 3 schools this last year) experience teachers have been absolutely fine with not doing homework if it's too easy or hard. or even if the child just doesn't feel like it that week. as long as you give the teacher the impression that you are generally supporting their efforts to teach your child I think you can get away with almost anything.

Some one posted a maths link a couple of days ago ,that might help . I have to say DS school is terrific they even have maths evenings to teach us parents how to help the kids . Regarding you childs work our school do chunking methods .Ask your child and see if it jogs her memory . I think it goes something like .20+30=50 and then 50+ 7 =57. And 7+8= 15. then you add the 10 to the 15 and this = 25. or on the last sum 7+8=15 then 10 +10+5=25 . I bet I have really confused you now . LOL