Year 3 maths assessment for independent school?

[Nomoremrtumble]

DD is being assessed for a move from a state school in Scotland (P4) to England where she would now be in yr 3, entering yr 4 in Sept. i am confident her current school is pretty good and she seems to have made progress in literacy etc. However, her teachers have always insisted she is fine at maths, even quite strong - having helped with homework it seems to me that she is actually fairly confused about numbers generally and is certainly not particularly confident about her maths. i suspect the big class sizes have meant this has been missed.

Anyway, what would a Year 3 student be doing at independent schools in England (no value judgement here, just it may be different between countries and systems!) - not the topics the most mathematical children are tackling, just the things we need to have gripped not to look like she is clearly behind.

Thanks!

Times tables were the main area of focus for most of Year 3. Weekly tests buildling up to a timed challenge fo a random mixture. Also time, calculating forwards and back, and word problems using topics like money.

One (fairly academic) independent school near us says they expect pupils halfway through Y3 to be comfortable with

NUMBER and the NUMBER SYSTEM
-counting, properties and numbers and number sequences
-place value and ordering
-estimating and rounding
-fractions

SOLVING PROBLEMS
-problems involving money and measures
-organising and using data
-making decisions
-reasoning about numbers or shapes

MONEY, MEASURES, SHAPE and SPACE
-money and measures
-shape and space

CALCULATIONS
-understanding addition and subtraction
-rapid recall of addition and subtraction facts
-mental calculation strategies (+ and -)
-pencil and paper procedures (+ and -)
-understanding multiplication and division
-rapid recall of multiplication and division facts
-mental calculation strategies (x and ÷)
-checking results of calculations

Thank you - that is really helpful. Tables are okish although they are a bit 'in one ear....' but she would be flummoxed by some of the items in your list Tmesis. Some work needed over half term methinks!

For the beginning of yr3 that would be a top set maths level at our reasonably academic non London independent.

Tables are the main thing I would say and a good understanding of number ,a good independent will take note of the different curricula and be looking for potential and the ability to catch up where necessary rather than the complete package immediately.I would concentrate on making sure she is really secure in the basics and then start to build on that,the school will fill in specific gaps.Try the Galore Park books as a lot of independents use them,although at ds school year 2wS very interactive with lots of use of number games,number squares and White board all geared to making them very confident with numbers in general.

Interesting stuff - that's what both my DDs (top sets Maths) were expected to be able to do in their good but not outstanding state school - I guess I am very lucky.

Well that's good then ,I don't expect my children to be ahead of the local state school I just thought the list seemed daunting and the message needed to be softened .

Some of the later mental problems ,checking etc ,mental complex division would have been beyond ds1 at the March of year 2 he still got an A at IGCSE

mrswoodentop it does look daunting, but if you look at how they actually learn it, it all falls into place. I'm always amazed by how much my DCs actually do know about numbers, by YR3 they will have been building this stuff for years. It may be that her current school haven't been serving her particularly well in maths, perhaps she may need a different style of learning to work with numbers (i.e. more visual or hands on) but she sounds bright and you're clearly very supportive so she will be fine.

Thanks all - to be fair to the school they have done most of this and have certainly tried to drive home the basics. I think she is probably fairly able but not brilliant (at maths anyway, really good at the rest IMHO!) and this is the group that gets lost in large classes. Plus dd2 arrived and I stopped standing over her! Thanks for the book recommendation - v useful - and the good advice just to secure the basics. i agree, there isn't much point in trying to teach new stuff at this point.

Thanks again - much more useful to have real life info than the reams of blurb available on maths sites.

Just a quick thanks to mrswoodentop - we have been working through a Galore Park book which is great. The mist seems to be lifting!