Maths homework - what age and stage would you say this is for?

[slightlywarmer]

DC has been given this angles worksheet for his top set Year 7 homework but he covered it a long time ago at primary where he was also top-set at maths.

Just wondering what year it's normally covered in at primary?

We did this in Year 5. Children need repetition to embed their learning though. Your DS may remember fine but I'm willing to bet there are many others who will have forgotten.

Yes i would say year 6/7 depending on ability.

My Y5 has just answered the questions. The year 3 pulled a face and said he didn't know.

Posted too soon... also it is good do redo topics as they It embeds them. You’d be surprised how many children will forget topics or are adamant they have never covered something when they have 😂

Year 5. Too easy for top set Y7.

I would say the teacher has given it as a refresher before doing the topic again in more depth. But that would be a guess. My yr7 would be able to do it but I’m more sure my yr5 would have a clue.

What I have noticed with DS14 now Y9, is that the same topics go round and round. So they represent something in an easy form to get them back into thinking about it all and then rapidly expand on it and take it forward the next step.

My son is also top set maths, but his memory can be hazy, so these quick and easy refreshers set him up for the next jump.

(geography is another subject that this seems to happen in).

DD2 has just done a similar homework in maths, last week. She isn't top set, but she's year 7.

Y5/Y6 however it will be a refresher. Angles and any type of shape and space topic are notoriously bad for being forgotten about as they aren't visited that often. I'm a Y6 teacher.

My 6 year old in Y2 is admittedly quite far ahead in maths but he could do that easily. That's far too easy for top set. It would be OK as a first step just to make sure there aren't any students lacking a basic grasp of trig but it should then lead quickly on to some more challenging, problem solving questions.

Angles on a straight line in year 2?? They don't need to learn anything more than a right angle.

Is he only supposed to be calculating the missing angle, or calculating the angles of the triangles as well? The triangles seem unnecessary otherwise?

@AnotherOriginalUsername I thought that too!!

@Anotheroriginalusername you need the triangle to make it a legitimate angle. You can't just transect a semi-circle with a line and ask for the angle without giving some sort of information about the angle of the line, unless you want the student to use a protractor to measure the angle. By drawing a triangle, they have the information that "angles in a triangle add up to 180°" and "angle in a semi-circle is 180°" as well as "angle of a right angle is 90°". Using that information, they can use subtraction to work out the missing angles.

In fact, it looks like a step before the homework my DD was getting, so they won't need all of those facts, they'll just need to know "angle in semi-circle is 180°", but the triangle gives the other angle. The HW DD had asked for other angles, too.

Both my boys would have done that in year 5, but much of the work in Year 7 seems to be ensuring that all the children know the primary school work.

@Anotheroriginalusername you need the triangle to make it a legitimate angle. You can't just transect a semi-circle with a line and ask for the angle without giving some sort of information about the angle of the line, unless you want the student to use a protractor to measure the angle. By drawing a triangle, they have the information that "angles in a triangle add up to 180°" and "angle in a semi-circle is 180°" as well as "angle of a right angle is 90°". Using that information, they can use subtraction to work out the missing angles

But a straight line is 180 degrees so the triangles aren't necessary, just a line at an angle with one of the two angles given is enough to calculate the missing angle as OP's son has done in the first one. The triangles look deliberately varied although there's sufficient info there to calculate all the angles of the triangles (no scalene triangles with just one angle calculable for example)

Think all those triangles are right angle or isosceles so you can work our all the angles - BUT! They haven’t got proper notation which would be my main complaint about this hw! Should have the dashes at the sides of the triangles to show the sides are the same length

Yes, I said afterwards that DD2 had done a more complex homework. she was given one angle, but not necessarily one of the angles in the semi-circle, and the angle to be defined was in the semi-circle. So she had to use her knowledge of the angles in a triangle (and the various rules for different types of triangle with regards equal edges and angles, etc.) to work out the angle of the angle that was wanted.

DS has just done this in Y5.

@Lougle They don't need the triangle to work out the missing angle if you're just using the fact that the angles along a semicircle add to 180 - they would just need to draw a straight line and have the two angles drawn in. If you only know one of the angles within a triangle you can't calculate the other two unless you have more information (for example one of the other angles is a right angle or it's an isosceles triangle). In this case none of that other information is actually provided so either they're asking the student to assume it or they're not asking the student to calculate the other angles inside the triangle at all in which case there was no point drawing the triangle.

When they start a new subject in year 7 they will always go back to basics at the start of each topic to check what the baseline maths ability is as many primaries will have taught in different ways and may not have covered matters well. If it is a starter session it will be easing them in before they extend their knowledge.

My brighter year 3's were easily able to do that.

It looks like Complementary and supplementary are yr7 topic, but I would expect a bit more for top set work. But it may be a quick revision before using this to do more challenging stuff? (I hope)

*Complementary and supplementary angles