who the chuff thought teaching division through chunking was a good idea???

[sausagesandwich34]

it's stupid, long winded and confusing

that is all!

do they still teach long division then?

dd is yr 4

My DDs both learned 'bus shelter method' (which is long division by any other name) alongside chunking. Chunking is far superior, because it makes it obvious why it works the way it does. It requires a proper understanding of place value as well, which is useful.

lougle I think I luffs you. Are you a teacher?

Ahh thanks pointyfangs

No, I'm not a teacher, but when I was a girl, I was going to be a Secondary Math's teacher when I was older

What are calculators for?

Since when did anyone, outside a KS2 classroom, do long division except by pressing buttons?

Me, on occasion, when a calculator isn't handy.
I'm the sort of Geek who likes little challenges like mental maths, anyway.
I resort to shelter method when I'm too tired to chunk & have shown it a little to DC.

Long division was taught on about the only day I ever had off from primary school.

Despite having Maths A Level, I still can't remember how to do it, without a lot of rude words.

I have spent 27 years of my life unable to divide anything much at all. Until a friend who is a primary teacher showed me chunking! Amazing! I can actually do Maths! Hurray. I think that my brain just couldn't understand all the goes into stuff.

I'm so glad schools teach multiple methods these days, and I'm sure we will have a new generation of more numerate Britons as a result of this.... Well done to the Maths curriculum managers who made this Antarctic change, so my children will not grow up thinking they are crap at Maths, like I did.

Antarctic? Don't know where that came from, but I like it!

Oh I like chunking. It makes sense to me.

Chunking is how you do to divide up bills after a night out :)

I'm crap at remembering times tables but I suspect I'm a natural chunker .

But sausages that's exactly the problem with the quick method taught too early:
346/3 isn't 3/3, 4/3 , 6/3, it's 300/3, 40/3 and 6/3. (If they understand this, it's so easy to think 300 30 16 as the next step.)
Chunking helps them to understand the real meaning of division, and to understand place value. It really secures their table knowledge too, and their ability to spot multiples quickly.
Whoever said it has to be taught well is completely right - the kids are
easily confused if the teaching is even the slightest bit foggy! And that is compounded by 'helpful' parents showing them their quick method, guaranteeing a missing chunk of understanding forever more!

Secondary maths teacher here wanting to point out that chunking is all well and good for long division, and for understanding division, but please could you make sure the children can do the bus stop method too.

Because when they get to secondary and start dividing decimals and remainders are tossed aside, they will need the bus stop method and the amount of kids who have to pick it up quickly ('never did this in primary') so they're not left behind is quite frustrating.

Well, we have to leave SOMETHING for secondary teachers to cover!

I dusagree noble, i am happy tovteach bus shelter if they can chunk correctly.

I mean, they need the bus shelter method whether they can chunk or not. Most kids come from primary able to do it but there's always a couple who can't and who claim never to have seen it before - even in top sets. It disadvantages them.

Can chunking not work with decimals too? Disclaimer: Massive bus shelter method fan, but surely the principle would remain?

87.5/7 =?

7 x 10 = 70
7 x 2 = 14
7 x 0.5 = 3.5

--> 87.5/7=12.5

110/3 = ?

10 x 3 = 30
10 x 3 = 30
10 x 3 = 30
6 x 3 = 18
2 remaining gives 2/3 or 0.6666r

110/3 = 36.6666r

75.8/4=?

10 x 4 = 40
8 x 4 = 32
0.5 x 4 = 2
0.25 x 4 = 1
0.2 x 4 =0.8

10 + 8 + 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.2 = 18.95

34/0.5 = ?

10 x 0.5 = 5
10 x 0.5 = 5
10 x 0.5 = 5
10 x 0.5 = 5
10 x 0.5 = 5
10 x 0.5 = 5
8 x 0.5 = 4

10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 8 = 68

4.75/0.5

8 x 0.5 = 4
1 x 0.5 = 0.5
0.5 x 0.5 = 0.25

8 + 1 + 0.5 = 9.5

I realise that bus shelter method will be faster, but if we're talking about understanding, this method still works well.

Once I twigged that "chunking" is the same as "guesstimate the answer using an easy multiple than sort out what's left over" I realised that's how I tend to do division in my head anyway.

Exactly, Snorbs. Long division does exactly the same, because we deal with each column in turn, then look at the answer, and the place value comes after.

So with long division, we might end up with 156 as the answer, but when we were working it out, we were writing '1' '5' and '6', not worrying about how those numbers related to the eventual answer.

Chunking works well when it is taught and understood properly. Poor old ds didn't get it all all so dh had to spend an hour doing it (to make sure the homework was done) and all our wits were at an end, and our tethers too.

All those examples are fairly straightforward, it must be said, Lougle! Two of them are dividing by a half where it would be much easier to simply double. What about say, 87/8 give your answer as a decimal? Or convert 1/6 to a decimal. Or 2.76935/5 which would be a work of seconds to use bus stop. Chunking is inefficient or useless in these scenarios and to get a child to attempt to use it would be ridiculous when there is a better method.

I just do long div in my head, but then I've always loved maths.

The problem I have with chunking is simply the ghastly name... makes me think they're being sick...

Children are taught a number of methods of doing division precisely because some methods are easier or more efficient than others for particular problems, and children learn to choose their favoured methods when the time arises that they are actually working problems out for real. When children are first taught to divide they are often shown it as repeated subtraction. So 12 sweets divided by 4 children is just 3 sweets taken away 4 times. So the reason chunking is so logical is because division is still just repeated subtraction, but with much higher numbers involved. By doing the chunking method you are showing them the logic of division still being repeated subtraction but are subtracting in chunks instead of singly. It makes perfect sense to me. However I am a TA in Year 6 and the main reason certain children find chunking hard is because during the process of chunking you end up using multiplication, subtraction and then finally addition, all to solve the same 'division' problem, and some of the children in my Y6 class find that a complicated idea at first. But I still think it's a brillaint, clear and logical method of teaching division.

As an ex teacher I agree with you. Chunking is crap. Nothing wrong with the bus stop method!

87/8

10x8 =80
0.8 x8 = 6.4
0.05 x 8 = 0.4
0.025 x 8 = 0.2

10+0.8+0.05+0.025= 10.875

I'm not saying it's practical, or efficient, but it does work and can be used. I prefer the bus shelter method, but to say chunking can't be used is inaccurate.

Convert 1/6 to decimal

0.1 x 6 = 0.6
0.05 x 6 = 0.3
0.01 x 6= 0.06
0.005 x 6= 0.03
0.001 x6= 0.006
0.0005 x 6= 0.003

It continues, obviously, so the answer is 0.16666666r

Again, by no means practical, but possible.