Worried

[Marjoriew]

Grandson goes to Explore Learning for which I pay the reduced price of £50 a month. He goes for 2 1 hour sessions a week for maths and literacy.
His marks there fluctuate from between 100% for maths to about 38%.
He has quite a low reading age [about age 9] and he has progressed slowly but steadily with this.
The problem is this.
I have noticed that sometimes he will come out of the session with his report on the work done and it's showing that things he has done at home, they are doing with him and saying he is struggling with it - for example +and - with borrowing. When I say that he's done this at home and is familiar with it, they look askance at me. He is very good at this stuff.
The one area of maths he is struggling with is problem solving.
The same goes for handwriting - it's absolutely appalling when he goes to his sessions but lovely handwriting at home.
Now that he's 11, I'm getting a bit edgy about the secondary age thing.
I had planned to take him out of there around Christmas - he's been there since last August - and bring in a maths tutor.
I've also noticed, the place is very noisy, so wonder if that is a contributory factor.
I'd be glad of some input from you folks, and I'm sorry it's so long.

Sounds to me like the atmosphere there is not conducive to him learning, for whatever reason.

I'd be building his confidence and skills with a tutor, I think. one-on-one with a really good tutor for 35 minutes a week (which I'd guess is about what you'd get for £50 a month) would probably pay off much better.

Thanks for the reply, ommmward. I was thinking along the same lines myself.
At home, it's quiet, he is easily distracted, but he does work well and puts his all into it.
I don't mind paying for it if he is benefitting from it, but just lately he seems to be getting a bit jaded from it, whereas he couldn't wait to go before.

Have you looked at Mathletics? It's £39 per year. You log in as often as you like - my DS (home educated now but likes to stick to school holidays) has been doing about an hour a day but I think when we get back to it in September we're going to cut it down to 3 times a week. It follows the National Curriculum. You choose the age group and work at your own pace. If you get something wrong what my DS does is starts it over again so he can get a perfect score so lots of opportunities for practice. It also shows you how to work things out. I honestly think he's made more progress with maths since being out of school which I put down to Mathletics and a bit of one on one help from me. One thing, don't jump about changing the year. I did this as I wanted to check what he'd be doing in Yr8 and what was in Yr6 before deciding on starting at Yr7 level. I hadn't seen the small print that you're only allowed 6 changes so got locked out. I emailed them and they put us back on Yr7 easily which we're stuck with till he's got through it although I think they might allow us one more change to Yr8 before the year is up. I have noticed with my son though that sometimes things don't stick and I'll say but you've done this before no trouble. It could be tiredness and as you say your grandson could be jaded with Explore Learning.

I think it's the pressure, Marjorie. My DH is a whizz with numbers at work. He's worked in retail, at management level, for years, so had to work out percentage increases on previous years, sale prices, cashing up errors etc. etc. Now he sells cars and spends his time working out finance offers etc.

But he had to sit his maths GCSE 6 times before he got a C grade.

Loads of people are like this. Who cares what the tests say? The most important thing is that he can do it, which you know he can. And if they're only covering things you already cover at home, then I'm confused as to why you're sending him at all? I think if it were one of mine, I'd be wondering if it was actually hindering rather than helping, and that he might be doing even better if he weren't going at all.

It's really beginning to get to me. Every time I go there, it's the same stuff he's done at home.
When he's working at his own pace, he gets through it - I won't rush him with it. I know he knows it, and so does he, so perhaps that's why he doesn't bother when he goes there.
I'm going to have to re-think the whole thing, I think.
Thanks folks:)