Maths in KS1 - showing workings

[Alwaysannoyedaboutsomething]

DD is in Yr 2 and is good at maths. She is constantly doing sums in her head - adding 2 and 3 digit numbers, converting minutes to hours, working out the 13 times table, for example. She’s not a genius, she’s just old in her year and has always enjoyed maths.
But at school they are working on things like very simple column addition. Her teacher says she MUST show her workings otherwise she won’t get full marks in the SATs at the end of the year. However, it just seems ridiculous to her (and me!). She IS using the correct methods, just doing it in her head. So for example, if I ask her how to add 32 and 64, she will tell me that she adds the tens and the units separately.
Anyway... I guess I’m looking for advice - has anyone been in a similar position? I’ve asked the teacher to give her more difficult sums (that she would have to show her workings for!) but the teacher is adamant that she must show she can do it with the easy sums first.
It’s making homework extremely painful and I worry that longer term it might stifle her love of the subject.

OP you are correct. Your child's teacher is outdated. Nobody insists on using column addition any more, it's bad practise. No one who was any good at maths would use column addition in many cases e.g. 456+199, and children should be encouraged to use whichever method they can use accurately and quickly. If she doesn't do column addition in her head there's no need to put column addition down on paper. If she's doing a longer addition for which she's using column addition (mentally or otherwise) she will need to put it down on paper.

" Nobody insists on using column addition any more, it's bad practise" except it's a requirement of the National Curriculum to use column addition and subtraction.

I think you only get the mark for the working if it’s an arithmetic error, noble. If it’s an error with the place value/carrying, you still get 0 even if you show the working.

Ah yes what I meant was you can get a mark if you show working, not that you will. And the working may have to be an approved method e.g. column for multiplication not Napiers.

My view as a teacher is that it's a good habit to show working as then later in when they struggle with more complex calculations the teacher can see where they've gone wrong and correct misconceptions

I know what you meant, it’s just an oddity in the marking policy given Gove’s determination to have an approved formal method. I have a feeling some children are probably better off using a non approved method.

My ds sounds very like your dd op, he has always enjoyed maths and is constantly working out in his head. He got a homework sheet the other day and wrote all the answers in about 5 minutes. When I saw it said to show your working it was like pulling teeth trying to get him to work it out and he did it quite messily and half hearted. I then wrote my own much harder question and he wrote all the workings out well and correctly answered the question. I felt that helped him to realise what he was supposed to do with the smaller numbers he does in his head. He still finds it an inconvenience to write his workings when he doesn’t need to though

I always thought it was so they knew you hadnt cheated back in my gcse days but i think now its more now so that they are used to showing workings so later on it helps with fractions etc which are hard and they will find easier to show their workings for it. At this age its about giving them the tools they need now when its easy for later in life when its more difficult. X