Primary school maths getting difficult for our kids ..

[harold81]

blog.mathsloth.com/2017/08/worldtop10elementarymathsqns.html

My DD ( primary 1 ) tried the list of questions .. and was 3 for 10. She managed the U.S. question, but the Hong Kong and China's primary 1 questions were slightly too difficult for her. The UK ones - she already knew when her teacher covered briefly with the class.

I have a feeling the standard of maths is unnecessarily high for primary school kids. The world's schools seem to think otherwise.. wonder how kids in other countries cope ..

"If a child is getting the wrong answer it's worth getting them to explain/show you how they arrived at the answer but is it really necessary if the child can give the correct answer?"

OutwiththeOutCrowd nice work with explaining the AB + AB = BCC solution so lucidly !

Oh, sorry, mrz.
But still not convinced, my ds doesn't get an answer wrong often, and if he did, it's more to do with not paying attention, rather than calculation mistakes. So, if you were his teacher, he would have been allowed to just give an answer and never learnt how to show his workings, which could have been a problem later.

Its not a bad plan to have to show workings some of the time - they get mstks gor showing working at GCSE and A level never mind the dreaded SATS!

As I said Irvine "If a child is getting the wrong answer it's worth getting them to explain/show you how they arrived at the answer "

Dreaded SATs gives full marks for a correct answer but if the answer is incorrect they can get some marks for working out BTM.

But mrz, my ds isn't the one who gets wrong answer, especially with ks1 maths problems. Maybe not with ks2 maths either. So, if your approach was applied to my ds, he would have finished primary without knowing how to show workings. And once he came to show proof for something(which he does that sort of things now), he wouldn't have known how. Don't you find that a problem?

I don't know about you but I've never had to prove my working out to anyone but a couple of maths teachers who wouldn't believe I could work out the answer in my head faster than they could with a calculator. It actually turns some very able kids off.

How would you show the working out for OutwiththeOutcrowds example? It's thinking logically ...

I see you are talking from your own experience. But most of the people aren't like you, and my ds isn't like you, though he has natural aptitude for maths. He has definitely benefited from learning how to show workings.

My experience as a pupil, adult, parent and a teacher Irvine.

I am not sure the ability to compute in seconds in head equate to great maths ability. Same as someone who can read any word don't equate to a good reader, like my ds used to be.

Being able to calculate in your head doesn't equate to maths ability but it frees you up to apply that to problems which is what we use maths for in life.

I am really confused at your comment, tbh, mrz.
So you think it's pointless to show how you work things in your head if you know the right answer. But I wonder how many children you encounter is like my ds, not like you.
More advanced maths is all about proof. How can someone who never learned how to show workings in mathematical terms be able to do that?
Like I said, if you were my ds's teacher, you would have let my ds get away with just giving you the correct answer.
And his approach could have been totally different to maths. Suddenly realising he can't do everything in his head, but don't know how he can express in writing either. May end up totally put off by it.
Instead, his teacher showed him how he should approach it from the start, that he needs to show how he worked it out. And sorry, I am still convinced that her approach is better for most of children.

That's not what I said Irvine. I said if a child can correctly calculate it in their head (accurately and automatically) why ask them to write it down? I didn't suggest that every child should do that or that every child will be able to do that. It's about knowing the child and their capabilities and setting appropriate expectations.

No one has explained how you would expect a child to record their working out for OutwuththeOutcrowd's problem

In the bus problem the child told me he knew that 19 was 2 more than 17 so the answer was 2 more so 65. Now I could insist that he wrote out a load of number sentences but why ?

I'm also not sure why you should assume they've never learnt how to show working out

I really don't know tbh. I think I have dismissed your comment if you were just one of "the poster" to me. But since I respect you and take your comment seriously than others, I responded the way I did.
Sometimes I feel like your comment seems to be so restricted, your way or everything is wrong. But that's my understanding, not your fault.
And maybe you are right anyway.

I really hope its be because I'm reading this early on a Saturday morning but I couldn't work out any of those maths problems! While maths was never my strongest subject i consider myself relatively intelligent! God help us oldies if kids are so clever in year 2 and 3!!!

It's a bit like expecting a child to read every word by making it sound out when they are more than capable of reading the word automatically.

Ok I can do the uk and us ones but that's it

But can you see you are making moot point?
You said if the child knew the answer "65", then don't need to know how he got the answer. But you said he came to that answer by knowing 19 is 2 more than 17. So you must asked him about it. That's what I am trying to say all this time.

Yes but I don't expect him to write it down every time ...that's what I'm saying Irvine.

Don't you worry the child grow up to be the one who says, " I don't need to do what others do, because I can do it when I need to." ?

I had one parent came to me slagging off the teacher because she made him do the things her dc can do easily, like showing working out. I had totally opposite idea and ended up shouted at by that parent. She had similar idea to yours, but her dc wasn't like you at all.
All the works in lower primary is for building up for KS2. All the works in KS2 is building up for secondary. That's my belief.

Why would they?

No they don't need to, obviously. But I do value the ability my ds gained from his teacher.
First time "showing workings" came up was by sir's comment. I genuinely thought it did do good to my ds, so I commented accordingly. I don't know, maybe sir's dd is like you, who doesn't need multiple steps. But if she is like my ds, being able to show his working gave him advantage, that's all. And get used to it from simple ks1 maths made it even easier.

Irvine it's one small part of what they do in school maths ...they will have completed hundreds of written examples of different calculations in class work. It's simply different "work" based on child's ability.
In my class this year I had children struggling to master numbers to ten and others able to solve multi step problems involving all four operations ...should they do the same work?

I feel like you are deliberately missing a point.