Y 5 Struggling with Maths. Think we need a tutor? Even I find it difficult

[QuintessentialShadyHallows]

We seem to spend considerable time as a family doing maths homework with our year 5 boy, and I am not sure this is normal, or the way it should be.

We just moved back to the UK after 3 years overseas, and it would seem our son has big gaps in maths. The leap from his old to his new school seem enormous. I dont know HOW he should be able to work out Mode Median and Range, even I struggled with this. Never seen this type of calculations before, and it is like we are Home Educating him.

Neither myself nor my husband have the time and the skills, and his younger brother is bored senseless while we take it in turns on maths.

What can we do? Are there other resources? Books?

And where can we find a tutor in SW London? All the tutors I have been recommended no no vacancy, as they are fully booked till after Christmas, when their "charges" have exams into 11+ !!

I am despairing, as our boy used to love maths, and he is slowing beginning to hate it.

I'd talk to the teacher, there may be some one-to-one help available within the school during the lessons to fill in the gaps. IME the teachers are very ameinable to parents asking such questions if you pop your head in before school.

Have a look at the BBC site: www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/ Also you could look at getting a key stage 2 revision book (The CGP is very good- it's available on Amazon)- This will explain the areas children need to know by the end of key stage 2 in simple easy to understand language. If your son doesn't know them already, encourage him to learn his tables- so important in many areas of maths: www.multiplication.com - lots of games so it may spark his interest again

Tell the school of the problems you are having, the teacher really should differentiate homework so it is at an appropriate level for a child

Hope this helps

We've not really had to use it ourselves but I think BBC 'bitesize' might help here is the 'data handling' - it looks like it explains mode/median/range really clearly in the 'read' sections (I've not tried the games!)

Hope that helps.

x-post like that can't be wrong!

Thanks!
I had forgotten all about bitesize!

I am a total dunce when it comes to knowing what stage my son is at, due to having been abroad so long. y5 is Key stage 2? When does it end? End of year 6? Or is that keystage 3?

Key stage 2 is years 3-6, key stage 3 is years 7-9

KS1 is infants (yr1/2); ks2 is juniors (yr3-6) ; ks3 is start of secondary (yr7-9); ks4 is GCSE years 10-11. (I think!)

If you haven't yet, you should check with the teacher what they should have covered to date and try to identify with her/him any gaps. I think the mode/median/range will be new work for all of them in yr5 IIRC

You could ask the teacher also if your son is registered on MyMaths which seems to be a website they actually like to use and they are usually registered through the school so the teacher can track how they are doing on the online homework! Less of a battle to get mine on this one!
BBC bitesize is always a good one.

lso if you need guidance as to where is he and where he should be have a look at the Dcfs learning strands which will give you what they should be learning in each school year.

Good luck!

The mums in his class all say that their kids are finding it easy peasy and that their children need NO homework help.

I have agreed with the teacher to let her review him until half term, and we should discuss concerns at parents evening. But I am concerned that if this continues, he will just get a sort of "mental maths block"

Ds1 is much younger than yours but somebody told us about the khan (Kahn?) academy website which is basically a whole load of youtube videos that this guy has made to help his nephews with maths and it's snowballed and become really popular.

Ds really likes it as he can go at his own speed and the explanations are clear enough for him to follow and go over and over the bits he's not too sure of.

Lots of different topics but think the best thing is to start at the beginning with basic addition 1+1, sounds silly but the way they do it seems everything hangs together so worth doing. Plus he'll whizz through the first bits and get lots of confidence which will gee him up for the tackling the new stuff.

Ds is thrilled that they have explained sums in columns (ie normal old fashioned sums!) rather than using number lines even though they don't do them at school until next year but he's finding it much easier than the number line stuff, the mechanics behind it and and how it works have all fallen into place so he can see that adding up two big numbers like millions is mo more difficult than adding up 10+16 as he understands the principles.

If you are happy to pay for a tutor, then have a look at whizz.com an online tutoring programme.

you do a test at the beginning and it sets the level of maths it teaches. The kids are not aware of what year they are doing so build up from very easy maths and develop at each stage of the curriculum. It also covers every topic they should be learning at school (but quite often dont) and if you dont want to do a topic then tough because you still need to learn it.

Most maths programmes gives you the options to decide which topics to cover and most kids will avoid the ones they find hard.

I found it invaluable for filling in all the gaps that hadnt been taught in earlier years.

It is expensive, so worth doing trials, and maybe doing a few trials, setting the easiness level at different settings and then decide which end result you find best suits your child

Some links give you five free lessons, others give you a free two weeks which is better.

For specific topics, type in the topic you want to learn and add KS2 and there will be loads and loads of free links

i do some private tuition and i always use the KS revision books with students as well as using my own or other resources. So, why dont you look on amazon and see what they have for ks2 maths? the books cost about £6 and if you feel you can't manage to support your dc then talk to teacher about whether a private tutor might help.

and try this uk.ixl.com/math/year-5

Thanks for all the suggestions. I have ordered lots of KS2 resources from Amazon, should be with us in the next couple of days.

I am checking the links, and bookmarking for future reference.
I let him play on bitesize this morning, and he was pleased.

It does not struggle with all the topics. He is naturally good with maths. His teacher told me earlier that she has no concerns. But I suspect that is because she has not yet discovered all his gaps!

I would say that Y5 is LATE to be learning mean, median, mode? DS1 certainly learnt that at the start of Y4? (He is in top set maths). This year in Y5 he is doing algebra that makes me squirm, that I am sure I wasn't tackling until Y8/9.

We got a maths tutor for our DS in Y6. It did him the power of good - even just on the basis of confidence in SAT's.

If you are in NW London, PM me and I will provide contact details for him. He is a very good tutor and I can highly recommend him.

google Maths whizz - it's great!

We are not in North London, shame.

I shall check out maths wizz! Thanks!

The book people have a great range of math explanation books as well. Here is a link

www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100&productId=189529&searchTerm=maths

You shouldn't have to pay for tutors at this stage for school work. The school should support him. As for the parents saying its all easy peasy - bs! I seem to remember you are near me (RuT ?) and the competitive parenting is exhausting. I would take it with a grain of salt. Year 5 is probably the worst for competitive parenting as everyones darlings are fighting for places at Tiffin and superselective indies.