Mathswhizz computer maths programme

[Nena7]

Has anyone experience of this? My son's school is in the process of introducing this and will replace ALL maths homework. The kids are encouraged to go on it as much as possible at home and they have leaderboards at school.

They also use it every day at school, in lessons.

Whilst majority of kids enjoy it which is great (beats Minecraft ;) ), I am sceptical for a computer programme to replace homework as well as being integral in lessons.

Any thoughts?

My DC both get maths whizz through school & love it.

The school runs a lunch time club for kids who don't have internet access at home.

I think maths whizz can be repetitive but that is no bad thing

They (the kids) have to do an assessment first (at school) & then the programme adjusts to the level the kid is at as they do more on it although DD (7) seems more taken with the stuff you can buy in the shop (you accumulate money for each session to save/spend) than playing the games

Surely they can't use it in every lesson though??

Nena7:

I suspect this is more about providing fully differentiated & individualized homework - i.e. each child working on concepts appropriate for their ability/ stage at the time.

The beauty of this (and both our primary & secondary school uses My maths) is that the teachers can see precisely what your child is doing on it and how many attempts to get the right answer, etc....

Like anything it's a tool and it really does depend on several factors -

access (so will kids without computers at home really get as much time on it as those who can just get on when they like at home)?

how happy the teacher is to use it?

how well trained the teacher is to use it?

how well the teacher will integrate the data gathered on use with 'fine tuning' learning on an individual or group level (i.e. seeing that nearly everyone in the class struggled on a certain problem and going through it with that group to ensure they understand their mistake and can improve next time).

The other thing that research is starting to demonstrate is that children respond really well to instant feedback and rewards - and tend to like video games - so this is a fairly painless means of getting kids interested in trying to do more maths, maybe even recreationally.

HTH

MathsWhizz is v good in our experience. Really helped my Ds to progress.