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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Rubbish maths teaching in Y6?

12 replies

posyparker · 14/09/2006 10:21

I have always been told by DD's teachers that she is towards the top of her year group for numeracy. Imagine my horror when we sat down to do some 11+ practice a couple of weeks ago, that they have not been taught how to do multiplication or long division yet!!!!!!

To multiply they have been told to write down all the numbers in a long list and ADD THEM UP! eg for 5x25 they write down 25 five times. What if they need to do 103 x 103????? Do they get an extra-long piece of paper?

Is this normal? Should they be able to do multiplication by now? I am certain I could do it "properly" by her age. And long division is completely new to her. I don't mind teaching it to her, but surely they should have been taught it in school by now?

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Hallgerda · 14/09/2006 10:36

Sounds bad, posyparker. DS1 was taught to do long multiplication using a grid, which isn't too bad as an intermediate stage that shows what's really going on

(you'd do 103 x 103 by multiplying 100, 0 and 3 by 100, 0 and 3 then adding up all the answers to get 10609 - you set it out in grid form but I couldn't get that to work in this message - sorry!), but I showed him the column method.

Division is done by a method called "chunking" in schools these days (and I couldn't get the hang of that myself so showed DS1 the way I did it, and he didn't get any stick from the school for doing it that way).

portonovo · 14/09/2006 11:28

Our school expects children to start learning multiplication tables in Yr1-2 and be fairly proficient by Yr5-6.

For more complicated things like long multiplication and division, the school teaches methods like the grid method and chunking. These look cumbersome but they do help show the children the reasoning behind the sum.

However, our school encourages children to look at several strategies and choose the ones they feel comfortable with. So I taught my son my methods and he liked them and used them from Yr 5 onwards because he found them quicker.

Original poster

posyparker · 14/09/2006 11:31

Good grief, Halgerda, surely the traditional method is far easier! My head is in a spin now looking at your sum! Anyway, she is now doing multiplications the way I showed her, and is finishing the sums at school way ahead of everyone else.

They don't seem to have got on to "chunking" yet, so I've got her doing it the "proper" way. In fact they don't seem to have got around to divisions at all yet, other than those that are covered by their tiems tables (and then they know the answer automatically, so don't have to bother with the mechanics of long division).

Am beginning to panic about her progress (at least I'm forewarned in time to help DD2 early), although thank the Lord DD1 can read and write without much intervention being needed!

What was wrong with doing sums the traditional way?

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SKYTVADICT · 14/09/2006 11:31

portonovo - our school does the same, teaches various methods and the child uses the one they prefer. Ashamed to say though I don't know which my DD uses (now in YR6)as she just gets on with it.

posyparker - that is bad - you need to see the school imo.

Original poster

posyparker · 14/09/2006 11:37

Thanks portonovo, perhaps it's just me! The school has never explained how they teach things, which would have been useful. I wouldnt't have worried, but she ws getting really quite simple multiplications wrong using the "school" method, and I was surprised given that her school reports on numeracy have always been excellent. God knows how the less able in the class are doing.....

Well, she is now doing things my way and perhaps I will have a word with her teacher to explain what is going on.

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Hallgerda · 14/09/2006 11:38

posyparker, I'm inclined to agree with your preference for traditional methods, but I gather some children have conceptual difficulties with "carrying figures" that using the other methods for a while can help to overcome.

frogs · 14/09/2006 11:50

We had this too. I think the logic behind the new systems is that children should end up being able to understand the processes involved, rather than just blindly applying them. To that end I think it's reasonable for the school to demonstrate these chunking methods, but some of them are ridiculously circuitous and leave lots of openings for errors to creep in unnoticed.

I taught dd1 the old-fashioned methods at home, and did a lot of pre-11+ practice with the traditional workbooks. I've been recommended Galore Park as a publisher of traditional-style maths books apparently a lot of prep schools use them but never actually got as far as checking them out myself.

noonar · 14/09/2006 19:50

Speaking as a year 5 teacher... i suspect your child's teacher would be horrified to hear that your child is using a 'repeated addition' method with such large numbers!

Please bear in mind...just because your child can't remember the most efficient method to use for division and multiplication, it doesn't mean that they haven't been taught one!

Also, the numeracy strategy - which uk schools follow- does not require yr 5 pupils to learn long division. If your child is now only just in year 6, isn't it a bit early to judge the maths teaching in that year group?

shewhoneverdusts · 15/09/2006 11:13

Have to agree with you Noonar, my daughter is always telling me that she hasn't been taught how to do things, then as we go over it, she 'miraculously' remembers. Both my dds have been taught using chunking and grid methods, both of which I think leave room for error as there are more things to do, but they do seem to encourage a better understanding of why a sum works out to the answer (IYSWIM).

Original poster

posyparker · 15/09/2006 14:56

I can see your point re the numeracy strategy, noonar, and I can see that it probably fits in nicely with what will be expected of them in SATs next summer (presumably they'll be able to do LD by then). Unfortunately, 11+ is in November, and much more is expected of them (including LD and simple algebra) than they have been taught in school. I can understand why so many parents opt for private tuition, even for the bright kids (altho we can't afford it). I'll juct keep on with trying my best to teach her the new bits myself! Bet all the local prep schools have made sure they have already covered everything needed for 11+.............

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noonar · 15/09/2006 17:18

Private tuition sounds like a good solution. Good luck!

HRHQueenOfQuotes · 15/09/2006 17:23

Halgerda - that's how I learnt to do long multiplication (sp) at school many moons ago.

DS1 has only just started yr1. But what I do know is that they start learning multiplication tables this school yr, and are taught lots of different strategies for working out mathematical problems. I wish I had been taught basic maths showing me that there was often more than one way to work out a problem - as I really struggled with some basic maths stuff because I was only shown "one way".

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