Fear of maths - year 3 primary

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DS is a confident child and according to his teacher mathematically able.

However if you ask him any sort of maths question - E.g 'what is 125cm in mm?' instead of listening he starts to panic.

I think he needs to build his confidence somehow as I definitely have a fear of maths. DH thinks we should leave it because he doesn't want to give him a fear of maths. DH is very comfortable with maths.

I think he already has the fear and practice will reduce it.

What do we do?

TIA

Two suggestions

• start with much easier questions that are so easy they won't panic him e.g. 3+5
• is it just mental maths? is there any possibility of an issue of short term or working memory whereby he doesn't remember the numbers in the questions?

As you are more afraid of maths, perhaps you and DS could discuss things instead. e.g. DS, I'm interested to know how you add 25 and 32 in your head? And then you hear him work it out out loud. Then praise him, and say, oh that's interesting I'd do it like ....

Can you get your DS to teach you some maths ? Something that he is already confident at, then gradually raise the level.

I'm a primary teacher and I think your expectations are a bit high. I would stick to converting things like 5cm in mm or 200cm.in metres. Research coming out at the moment shows that Year 3 is possibly the worst affected year group post-Covid. Measure in maths is probably one of the areas that was missed out of both the Year 1 and 2 maths curriculum due to school closure. When the kids were back in school the emphasis was mostly on number.

Agree with the above. I've recently taught measurements in Y3 and many of the children struggled with conversion. How confident is your DS with other areas of maths?
As well as teaching I also have a Y3 child who isn't always confident with maths. I try to give her little maths problems to solve at home without her realising. Eg. Working out how much flour we need if we're doubling a cake recipe.
In class, the teacher will probably be using lots of 'concrete' resources to teach maths. Ask about what the children use and you might be able to do some of this at home - but important to keep it light and fun to slowly build confidence.

Thanks all - I really appreciate getting a view from teachers.

Def going to try the easy questions and also talking about how we work things out.

We've also realised that he has absolutely no concept of money so I think we will try and get some maths in there.

If forgotten what a big impact covid has had no we are sort of back to normal.

Any child that's in Year 2 upwards has been hammered by this pandemic both academically and socially. It's desperately unfair.

What I'd suggest is tackling some basic maths in a fun environment with money, weights/measures or even a board game. There's piles out there, mine particularly like the Orchard Toys ones.

If that is helpful, move up to a bit of regular Year 3 Maths from a workbook. I like the simple CGP ones like this because they're cheap and easy to pick up and put down.

Then, if all else fails and you get desperate, find a local tutor.