Trying to help my daughter but finding school unhelpful

[Morebiscuitsplease]

On Friday my youngest who is 7 in Yr3 was very upset about a particular question in her Maths Test - i have never seen her tearful about her work before. I reassured her that we could help her. I wrote a short note explaining that she was upset and had actually been in tears in class and asked if I could have said paper.
School response is no, they seem to think i will practice the paper with her..i must tell her not to worry...the entire class found it difficult. etc I just want to see what she found tricky so i can help her. Feeling frustrated as want to help and feel they are not being helpful. Your thoughts please...

Are you concerned that there's a particular aspect of maths that she's struggling with?

Could you ask them what type of question it was e.g. addition, subtraction, multiplication etc, and if there's anything you can do to help her understand and practice this aspect of maths until she's feeling more confident about it?

I think if you DD can't do it at school, teacher should have helped her to do it. It is a good chance to talk to her, help her understand we all have questions that we feel hard, these hard questions help us learning. The attitude towards hard questions is more important than learning the questions.

you can ask teacher if she think your DD is stuggling with math or not. If she think your DD is doing well. Then there is nothing to worry.

I saw DS2's math work at school recently, some word problems are quite hard, teacher said she had to work with him together. But I am not worry about it, as I know DS2 is in top math table. He is quite able. I am glad there are hard questions to challenge him.

I am concerned that she is upset by a test, not great for a 7 year old. From what she has told me I don't think they had practiced what was needed in the question that she found really tricky, I am rather puzzled by their refusal to co-operate and help me, help my daughter. I know it is to do with multiplication but seeing the question would be really helpful. Her Maths is ok but she does find it tricky at times.

Sounds like they may be doing half termly standardised tests. Lots of primary schools are moving to these. They will be very challenging. I imagine they don't want uber competitive parents going out to buy or acquire versions of the tests to practice with their children as that rather defeats the purpose! No implying that would be you- you sound as if you just want to help.

Part of the purpose of these tests are to highlight gaps in the childs knowledge which they will then teach to fill, no need for you to do it as a parent.

Developing resilience is a key skill that all children need to learn and sad as it is for you and her it is better that she learns it now rather than age 23 when she fails for the 1st time in her life (like the very academic daughter of a friend of mine)

I think you need to support your dd by explaining that there are some tests where you are likely to not be able to do some of it, it's not something to worry about it. You leave the questions that are too tricky and go to the next one etc.

My 7yr old came home in a similar state last week after "failing her maths driving test". Apparently if you get one question wrong you fail and she got 12x12 wrong. Anyway we talked it through and she "passed" this week, could it have been something like this that your daughter was doing? They seem to put an awful lot of pressure on some kids these days.

A lot of schools are switching to half-termly assessment tests that measure the new curriculum, but they are very challenging, more so than previously. Teachers are not allowed to help children in the tests. Many parents are going to hear a less positive story about their child's attainment this year, if they haven't already.

It is very stressful all round - for the children and for the teachers. However much you try and minimise that stress (and trust me, teachers do), the bottom line is that lots of children struggle when they feel they're being put on the spot and can't therefore show their best. Unfortunately, such is the government's obsession with testing, we're stuck with the system for now.

I also think developing resilience is about helping them so they get to grips with tricky stuff, knowing that you can do something you find difficult helps confidence.I will try to reinforce that if it is tricky to carry on and do the things you can and have a go later if time allows. I'm not quite sure why they can't test them on work covered as from what she said they had not practiced the grid method for multiplication.

It's sounding more and more like the Rising Stars assessments to me.