Why isn't maths valued in key stage one?

[pinkappleby]

and does this change as they get older?

My DS started school knowing a handful of sounds and recognising his name. No more than that. He could count. He understood one more and one less and could do simple sums in his head. Pretty typical I would guess.

In YR he has made what seems like massive strides in reading, writing, drawing, sports, he is more considerate of others, loads of progress on loads of stuff, I am happy with that. Yet they seem to have been taught no extra maths. We had a parents evening on what to expect in year 1 and again there seems to be not much emphasis on maths. He learns more maths by through talking things through at home with us. Is this because reading is the gateway to other subjects and they need to focus on this at this age? Is it just my school? I am bemused as you need good maths to get the best jobs

I am just sure the kids are capable of a lot more than they are asking them to do and wonder why they don't spend more time on it.

pinkappleby:

I thought this might help - this is the link from Campaign for Real Education for the maths curriculum in an ideal world at primary: www.cre.org.uk/docs/primary_maths_curriculum.pdf

Now this is ivory tower stuff and most likely is not the reality in your primary school - but it does give you a clear idea of when concepts are introduced and at what pace.

HTH

We have that too. Its all about the literacy. DS1 is learning his times tables at home. When he goes to school, he says they count from 1 -20 (well he says, but he's 5, so I can't be sure thats ALL they do) He could do that when he was 2...

Counting from 1-20 is not the same as being able to say what number comes after 11. I am fairly certain that they don't teach them to count up to 20 they teach them about number placement. At least that's how it has worked at our primary.

They also teach the number bonds to 10 (and beyond for more able children).

Anyway, maths is certainly taught in KS1 at DCs primary.

SoupDragon raises a good point.

Ordering numbers - so understanding 2 is smaller than 20 which is also smaller than 97 is part of this learning numbers to 10, 20 and 100 system.

I think the problem is maths is taught but the logic behind what is being taught and when is not clearly communicated to parents.

Unfortunately the DfE website on national curriculum is woefully full of teacher speak - which seems a travesty given tax payers are funding it. Parents could really do with a clear explanation of what happens and when - so our expectations and understanding of what we can do to support teachers are more realistic.

soupdragon - I'd like to think that what you say is absolutely correct, and my DS1 just interprets it as counting to 20.

I think it would be an unusual child who managed to correctly relay to their parents exactly what they are doing at school in the correct terminology :) I think that, often, they have no idea they are being taught stuff.

Y1 they also learn about number bonds to ten and twenty, learn about odd and even numbers, count up in twos and in tens, and learn about shapes including 3D shapes. Learn about basic symbols (+, -, = ). Learn about mathematical terminology. DS1 (now in year 2) and DS2 (y1) are learning loads of maths at school. But DH is a maths teacher so we also do loads of maths at home with them. Number bonds are really important, and it's key to learn those before times tables. Also counting up in 2, 5, 10 (not just starting from 0, but let's say, counting up in 2s starting from 7). has to be done before times tables. DS2 can count in threes backwards, which I'm sure is a very valuable skill..... but he didn't learn that at school!

I hate the way maths is taught in school these days; we chanted our times tables every single day through YR and Y1, as did my mum and my gran. My gran still knew her tables when she died at 88, mum the same at 84. I still know them and expect I shall for the rest of my life. It's nonsense that you need to understand the principle of multiplication before you learn your tables (what they said at dd's primary); you don't.

The number of times though my working life knowing my tables has saved time, and helped. You think you don't need much maths in RL, just budgeting and other money-related stuff. I needed to calculate the capacity of our pond, no sweat. I needed to calculate angles to build shelves in the corner, geometry thank you! And so on, and so on and so on.

Timez Attack is a pretty good computer based method of learning tables. It's really fun, dd used to play it a lot, even when she was really resistant to maths as a whole. (I might even admit to playing it sometimes myself blush ).

We are happy to leave measuring, weighing, shapes, time telling to school, but at home we tend to do our own thing, similar to nottigermum situation, DH is in Engineering so he has very strong mathematical background and true gift to transfer his mathematical knowledge onto his offspring, so at home DD y2 is fluent in timetables, division facts of those timetables, column addition/subtraction with borrowing/without, in short she is a secure and able mathematician, left y1 on level 3.
DH disregards comments such as" teaching the wrong method" as utter nonsense, so far his way of explaining/teaching served DD very well.
I agree basics need to in place, number bondsto 10/20 doubles to 100, counting in 2'5' and 10' from any given number before tackling anything more abstract.

We use the old fashion cuisenair rods, and also numicons to teach the principles of multiplication. If I ask my DS2 'what makes 12' he will say something like '4+2+4+2, so 2X2 plus 2X4'. He's 5 years old! Numicons are brillo pad www.numicon.com. I think it's so important that children can visualise maths problems, and numicons does just that.

Just because a child hasn't learnt their times tables by rote doesn't mean they will never be able to do them. It is nonsense.

I learnt them by rote and have mostly forgotten them. DSs both have a FAR more in depth understanding of the reasoning behind maths than I ever did (and I did it to A level). I may know that 4x3=12 but they know why which makes them far better at working out stuff they aren't just repeating like a parrot.

I agree with the poster earlier who said the meaning/reasoning behind times table does not have to be understood for children to memorise and move on. However, at a later stage, this learning by rote has to be underlined by reasoning for the child to exceed in mathematics and reasoning. So, no harm in learning by rote if the reasoning comes later (even some years later).

Yr 1 we get an hour of Mathis a day. Possibly the apparent lack of mates represents a narrow description of maths. In reception Ds did lots of things like measuring, bar charts, shapes as all as 2,5,10 x tables

"Unfortunately the DfE website on national curriculum is woefully full of teacher speak - which seems a travesty given tax payers are funding it. "

You think the national curriculum should not be written for teachers then?

You do realise that teachers use the national curriculum to teach. That's its purpose. That's why it's full of "teacher speak," whatever that is.

In our school, numeracy is just as valued as literacy. Equal time and homework dedicated to both, no matter which key stage.

soupDragon, of course, you're absolutely right. It is just so much less effort if you do 5 mins a day from the first day, than learning them later where far more effort is needed.

Not knowing tt well is not going to completely blight your life either, but it will make maths lessons a lot easier, and less effort, and therefore more interesting.

(Why does 4x3=12? Not being snarky or anything, but I don't actually understand. I'm doing a maths degree atm, so I probably do know why, but - as I said, I dqon't really understand the statement. Is it to do with multiple addition?)

My children did numeracy on a daily basis in Year One and when I went to parents' evening I looked through their workbooks and saw everything they'd done which was a tremendous amount.

They've just gone into Year Two and are now learning times tables.