Maths homework too hard. What age/level would you expect this to be?

[Runoutofideas]

My dd was in tears over her maths homework yesterday. It was answering questions on an online maths programme which they use regularly.

The questions consisted of 10 such as:

You need to travel 688km on a train which travels 40km per hour. How long will your journey take?

and 10 such as:

It is now Monday 3.10am - what will the day and time be in 103hrs and 17 mins?

DD found it very difficult. I'm wondering if it was set to particularly challenge them?

What year group/level would you expect to be able to answer questions like this?

well your child is obviously in reception right?

Uh....no

My DS1 would have had a good confident stab at this in yr5.
DS2 is in yr5 now and could do it but wouldn't believe that he could until he sat down with a pen and paper.

Any younger seems a bit ambitious!

I am secondary maths; distance/speed/time is level 7 and time calculations are level 4.

I would say yr 6 middle to top group orbyr 5 top group. Has she done long division in school yet.
Thowe questions are tricky though. The second one would take me a while to work out

Ds2 is in year 5 now, he had similar homework last week. He had to take time to work it out on paper.

How old is your dd OP?

Thanks pinkcheese.

And everyone else - sorry x-posted!

DS1 is in year 3. he would find that very difficult.

According to my dc (currently y6 and y8) those are y5 top group / y6 middle group.

From what I've seen, I'd say these are typical of 11+ practice papers, suggesting that they are, as pinkcheese suggests, year 5 to 6 (the time/distance/speed question being harder; I'd certainly expect to see time questions being practised in year 5).

Cerisier - would it seem odd then to have such a disparity in levels in the homework set?

She's 8 - yr 4. She found it ridiculously hard, but judging by your comments I am not surprised! Thanks

I've just asked ds3 who is in year 4 and he instantly got what to do - but struggled a bit with the arithmetic for the first long division. He is good at problem solving (but obviously less good at the arithmetic)

If you wrote the problems as straight forward questions do you think she could do them? If she could, then I guess they are trying to teach the problem solving bit. Often even children who are quite good at straightforward maths just panic at this part whereas others just spot the problem right away.

DD is 8 and is in P4. She was given similar types of problems a couple of months ago and she really struggled with them! So much so that for the first time ever I spoke to her teacher to say she had struggled with them. She can do them now but it takes her a long long time.

I would go and have a word with the teacher if you think it is a bit difficult.

My son is in yr 4 and the teacher does sometimes give them really difficult maths homework- the idea being that you help your child with the homework, and it opens up some interesting questions about maths.

But it could just be she was given the wrong homework

Go and speak to the teacher, I don't think its about 'what age its for' but more the fact that each child should be set a task for the level of work they are doing in class. My dd1 was doing these questions last year in year 4 but they were not given to all of the children, the teacher should know what your dd is capable of and give her the appropriate work.

Ds is in y4- top set- and this is pretty typical of his homework.

It doesn't matter what age or level it was- it was too hard for your dd, so wasn't appropriately set. I might let it go this time, but have a word with the teacher if it happens again.

I think I will speak to the teacher, mainly as, because it is done online, all they will see is that she got them all correct. There is nowhere to add notes to say this required an awful lot of help and was not done independently. I think all of her group were given the same, as I mentioned it to one other parent who said "We just gave up and didn't do it!".

Year 6, top set taking level 6 and would be fairly straightforward,so I would say top set year 5, middle set year 6 but wouldn't have a clue in year 4.

Just asked ds who is in scotland p5 = yr 4 the time one.

He worked it out in his head in a couple of mins.

Added 24 + 24 + 24 + 24 to get 96 so 4 days to Friday
Then added the remaining 7 hrs 17 mins to 3:10 to get the time

The sums aren't that hard it more thinking through how to solve using easy sums which he is currently doing in school.

Runout- is she using 'mathletics'? my dd's use this for a lot of their maths homework, dd2 refuses to use it at home so we now get a work sheet instead, dd1 loves it and will do extra work in her spare time, I agree though tat its not a good way of seeing what level children are working at or where they are struggling as there is no proof of working out (my dd will just use a calculator if she gets stuck the teacher has no clue). My dd1 did struggle with this type of question when first given them only because they have to think a bit more and work out a sum using a sentence rather than just numbers (she totally panicked but was capable of doing the working out).

Hi Marne,
Yes it is mathletics. It always seems to reduce her to tears! On the teacher set challenges there is no way to go back and correct any mistakes which is what my dd hates. Also often it is not very clear what the child has to do, which she finds frustrating. The thing is, her maths is good for her age, but she finds mathletics confidence sapping.

I always HATED questions like that at school, I used to find them so hard.

I would guess at about Yr5 top group.