What is your Year 5 child doing in Maths?

[Dancergirl]

I just want to get an idea of what sort of topics are being covered.

It's come to light recently that a lot of children in my dd's Year 5 class are bored in Maths and not learning anything new. There is no differentiation what they learn so the most able are doing the same work as the ones struggling with Maths.

A lot of the children in the class will be sitting exams for the local consortium schools and generally the questions on the practice papers are much harder than topics covered in class.

Dd tells me they have recently been working on place number and different ways of multiplying and dividing by 10 and 100. It all seems very basic. They have done very little on fractions - adding, multiplying etc.

I am actually very worried/cross about the situation but don't really know what do to. The consortium exams are on 7th September, not long away at all. The class had a poor year last year with a newly-qualified teacher who couldn't keep control. Year 5 is such an important year and I (and other parents) feel they are not receiving a good education.

How do they manage it with teachers/TAs 50shades?

50shades, what method does your DC use to do, for ex., 48.8 divided by 4.2? My DD has not been taught this yet, but I would like her to be able to do it, so I want to try to teach her.

Thanks

Yes Dancer, it's a state school with 2 form entry split into 3 maths classes.

I just think we've been extremely lucky! Bog standard state in Herts, mixed catchment. Good Sats, above national average, but not over pushy or pressured. Very little tutoring going on (other local schools have a culture of tutoring, but ours isn't quite competitive enough ).

They are, however, very aware of individual levels of progress. I sit on the Standards Committee of the governing body, and I can see how dedicated the staff are to achieving this. So every single child is tracked, has individual targets, and is supported to make a certain number of points progress a year.

They tried several different methods for maths, as some years simply had a more mathematical cohort than others. In the end, they settled on this method, and it has worked brilliantly.

The children who are ahead are stretched, and challenged against older children. The children who need more time and support are given it, and I am told are more confident about asking or answering questions.

Tbh, I thought that it was fairly standard practise to track progress.

Yes state school.

My Year 5's are doing different things. (We are a one-form entry state school in one of the rather poorly-performing areas of the country. We don't prepare anyone for any entry exams.)

So far this term, we have looked at different areas of Maths. My most able work through level 5/6 stuff (most recently: ratio and proportion, percentages, adding/subtracting/multiplying fractions, short/long multiplication and division, surface areas of solids, areas and perimeters of trapeziums/triangles/parallelograms, pie charts, dual and compound bar charts, different types of averages).
The kids in my middle-ability group are working on consolidating level 4, although they are capable of some level 5 stuff. (They've been working on: percentages of amounts, line graphs, adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing decimals, four operations, calculating area and perimeter, mode and range, equivalent fractions/decimals/percentages).
My weakest are working towards or are consolidating level 3. Some are still working on number bonds to 20. They mostly get similar objectives, but work to a lower level or with more support. So yes, they have worked on multiplying and dividing by 10.

I don't teach one thing and then differentiate three ways, though. My lessons are split into different small group sessions, so each group is working towards a different objective. If children do not cope or are showing to be more capable, they move to a different group or my planning gets changed to accommodate that. I don't know anyone, who still tries to teach without differentiation.

My ds was doing all the level 5/6 stuff mentioned by Thatssofunny and others in his mixed yr 4/5/6 primary class (small school) - admittedly with one class teacher and two TAs...but even tiny schools can do differentiation.

Hi Dancegirl:

Your situation sounds very similar to our own - we're at a single form school and the range of ability in maths goes from 3b to 5a - so the teacher is struggling to meet all needs and there is a lot of repeated work on basics (like multiplication/ division skills) to help lower ability pupils advance; however, the teacher spices it up for higher ability groups by making them either do challenges once they've completed the work or do harder things (like they did column multiplication 2 digits x 3 digits whereas bottom group did 1 digit x 2 digits until they got the hang of it/ when filling in the multiplication grid (mix of 12 times tables out of order) lower ability group started first, a minute later middle ability group and then finally higher ability group and the challenge was for higher ability group to finish before other groups - not everyone in high ability groups did it - so kids in lower groups were happy too).

You can move things on at home (which I'm afraid does have to happen in some places - including our home) - fortunately there are a lot of great websites out there:

My personal favorite is Woodlands Junior Maths Zone: resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/ - just chose the topic and off you go - all sorts of games/ ideas.

BBC Bitesize KS1 revision games in maths are also useful (working to end Y6 level - so ideal for preparation for 11+): www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/maths/

BBC also has a website under construction (BETA version) called BBC Learning: www.bbc.co.uk/learning/ - fantastic resources there and if you go through schools/ teachers you get to materials for KS1/ KS2 - just select maths in the orange box half-way down - or use this link: www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/keystage_2/topics/maths_ks2.shtml

Khan Academy arithmetic and pre-algebra: www.khanacademy.org/math/arithmetic - this is all free you just have to sign up and can do the lessons and homeworks. There also is an algebra & geometry section (just press learn on the menu - then maths in the pop-up menu & then select). You might have to do a bit of exploring - but very useful if during your 11+ prep you stumble across a gap in knowledge.

Some very useful worksheet sites exist as well:

Worksheets works: www.worksheetworks.com/ - can select type & difficulty, as well as number of questions for practicing at home.

or

Math drills com: www.math-drills.com/

Both require a bit of searching and familiarization - but very useful for finding practice material to work on problem areas or build ability.

I know there will be those here who will be horrified at doing this extra work outside of school - but given that questions involving more advanced maths skills than just calculation skills are on the 11+ it really does help to have some experience of working problems in algebra or geometry (especially area, perimeter & angle calculations or more irregular shapes).

Finally for great ideas I would heartily recommend signing up to The Mathematics Daily - a on-line newsletter about all things maths which is full of all sorts of ideas and has been very useful. Link here: paper.li/NathalieFytrou/mathematics

HTH

pastsellby thanks for your post, a lot of useful info there.

Dd already has a tutor and I do a lot of work with her at home too. But that's not really the point. Surely the school should be catering to every ability level which can clearly be done in other schools? Otherwise what's the point of her being there if she's not learning anything and is doing it all at home??

My DD2 is in Yr5 and is covering everything that kitchen has said - state school, she is in the top group. She's projected to be a 5c in maths by the end of the year. DD1 had a similar experience (though in a different school, we've just gone 2-tier), so good differentiation isn't that unusual in the state system.

theweek think I would probably multiply by a factor of 10 so 48.8 becomes 488 and 4.2 becomes 42. Then do it by long division.

I find it hard to believe there is a state primary school in the land that doesn't differentiate its maths lessons! It doesn't matter if it's only one form entry, most schools don't split into maths classes across the year in KS1 but the teachers still differentiate across the form group.

Are you absolutely sure there is no differentiation, does the teacher really introduce the lesson to the whole class and them send them all off with exactly the same work to do, or is there whole class teaching and then different groups are given the same work but at varying levels of difficulty?

thebuskers as I explained above, there is the INTENTION to differentiate but it doesn't happen in practice. There is whole class teaching, which takes forever according to dd and others, going over the basics again and again...then they all start off at the same point but the more able are supposed to do extra work. It rarely happens though.

Today dd was frustrated again as they were doing the grid method for long multiplication. Dd has no problems doing long multiplication the traditional method, yet she had to waste time drawing out the grids for each question!

Dancer, there's a logic why they teach them lots of ways to an answer - baffled me at first, but it means they get a far broader understanding of numbers and how they work, so it's worth her knowing all methods, so grid method, chunking, etc, etc, as it helps develop their mathematical brain/ abilities. Haven't put that very elegantly, bet someone else could do better!

Yes, agree with that Smee...it can seem frustrating at times (dd had to do a load of 'chunking' type divisions last night when she can do the traditional sort very quickly), but it does pay off later.

By Y6, the Head told me, the kids know which strategy they want to use and choose their own - but first they have to know them all. The school is strong in maths, and it shows in Y6 SATS, so I guess they know what they're doing even though it's utterly baffling to an old bat like me

Ooh yes Elibean, that chunking long division is quite something. Quite a bonding experience with my ds though, as we both found it hard.