Should Y5's know what a "number sentence" is?

[LynetteScavo]

Part of DD's maths homework is to write 10 number sentences.

DD didn't understand what she was supposed to do, and wrote actual sentences with words.

I was surprised, as her older brothers would have known exactly what to do.

There are one hundred very small things I'm cross about with her school atm....so not sure if I'm over reacting.

Our school taught them the term in reception although my children don't use that term themselves.

Yes. She should know.

Tis taught from Reception.

I have no idea what a number sentence is.

A number sentence is just what we used to call a sum.
Eg. 6 + 4 = 10 or 3 x 5 = 15

They are not called 'sums' anymore because 'sum' is a synonym for 'add'.

Generally yes as it is a term used from EYFS onwards.

Yes it is learned in reception. 1+1=2 is a number sentence

She has a class teacher who is new to the school, and I expect he presumed she would know.

She had no idea how to do last weeks homework either...adding numbers with a decimal place. She was fine once I'd taught her, but I don't want to be teaching maths during the evening, I want to be supporting her to consolidate what she has already learned in school.

Would any of you bring this up with the Deputy HT or HT?

I didn't know what a number sentence was either. In my day They used to be called Sums, maths or tables when I went to school --I'm officially old I guess!-

I would talk to the class teacher before the deputy or the head

Teacher new to school will be trying to find out what the children know

Number sentences are done quite early on in school and if your dd has been doing column addition in yr 4 then she may just have forgotten the terminology

Once she understood what a number sentence was, could she do the work set?

I'm not sure that calling them "number sentences" is actually that helpful. In what way do they resemble sentences? Have reception children grasped what a sentence is sufficiently to then translate it to "number sentences"? Why not call them equations?

I'm a secondary maths teacher and don't know what a number sentence is.

Taught from reception here.

They should know what it is, but I haven't actually ever used it with Y5. (It's one of the things, I quite happily leave behind as being for "the small people around here", which defines KS1 for my pupils.)
Mine would call it a 'calculation'. They wouldn't call it a sum, though, because that's the answer to an addition question.
It might simply be that, because the teacher is new to the school, he might not be aware of them not using this.
Regarding the decimals, your daughter should be able to add them in context (i.e. as money). Perhaps the teacher is just trying to find out what they can and cannot do. Have you had a parents' evening or introductory session, yet?
I'm asking mine to just let me know, if there's stuff they can't do. I won't rip their heads off...I also don't expect their parents to teach them things, generally. If they can't do it, we'll have a look at it in class. (Most of the time, they are a lot more compliant with me, which makes completing missing homework a 10-minute affair...instead of them annoying their poor parents for an hour, insisting that they don't get it.)

I will ask her tomorrow (I'm not with her right now).

Calculation is much better.

Definitely used from Year 1 upwards, possibly even Reception.

Just asked my yr3 son. He very confidently described what he thought a number sentence would be. Ah, I said, is this what you've even taught at school? It seems not. It just seemed like a logical answer to my question. He told me they call them sums at school.

The phrase was introduced to primary schools some years ago to mean the recording of a calculation; 2 + 4 = 6, 5 - 1 = 4, 3 X 6 = .... etc.

It is clarify the definition of the word sum to mean an addition - i.e. "the sum of 2 and 4 is 6". Saying "the sum is 6 subtract 2 is 4" can confuse children struggling to identify which operation to use.

I just got DH to ask Yr 3 DD if she knew and she said "Yes - it's sums".

I have never heard of them myself.

No help whatsoever to OP but there you go.

Our Y2s use the term "number sentence".
Personally, I don't particularly like it. We've defined what sentences are in English. A calculation doesn't meet any of these requirements and makes things confusing.

I have previously covered the words "sum", "product", "difference" and "quotient" with my Year 5 class, but most of them won't remember the last one. They know the difference between a "sum" and a "product", though. Lots of mental maths questions also ask them to "find the difference".

I'm still trying to "beat" the misuse of equals signs out of them.

My yr9 dd didnt know.

How do the misuse the equals sign?

DD knows what a number sentence is and has done since reception (she is now in yr2).

Having said that DS didn't know how to use an apostrophe in the plural ie "the babies' toys" at the end of yr4 which I did raise with the school (& taught him it at home!)

They have a tendency to just shove everything together into one calculation:
5+4=9+3=12-4=8

WAAAHHHH

We've worked hard on balancing both sides and them understanding basic algebra. Slowly, very slowly, they are getting into the habit of applying this in normal lessons. They know it,...they are just too lazy to go into a new line.

A lot of kids think that = means 'the answer is'

And I suppose this won't be helped by teaching them that a calculation is a 'sentence'.