Maths anxiety in Y5 into Y6 girl

[MoverOfPaper]

DD is very anxious about maths. She’s in Y5 going into Y6. Her school report says she’s a capable mathematician, that she always trys hard and that she’s working at greater depth within the expected standard while making expected progress. On paper therefore there’s nothing wrong.

But she’s anxious.Shes in a boy heavy class with some very confident children. I’m worried that she’s already experiencing some internal “girls can’t, I can’t” about maths. She’s making herself ill.

I’m happy to get a tutor if we can find one. I imagine most will be booked up. I live in the sort of area where people tutor for state grammars and independent and public schools. I don’t really want that sort of tutor. What I think she needs is someone who knows the methods schools use these days and can sit with her and do some maths.

DP says there must be a book that tells you how to teach maths to Y 5 children. That we should get that and do it ourselves. Is there such a book? We used to have Scottish Maths (?) at Primary but I thought schools stopped using textbooks?

We have numicon!

Does a tutor seem like a good idea? Is there a textbook? What else can we do that’s low key and not stressful but will help shake her maths anxiety and make her feel more confident in school next year?

I think a sympathetic tutor would be more helpful in this scenario than workbooks or other home-based activities. Someone who is gentle and fun and inspiring, to do various maths-based activities with her, that are not necessarily aligned with the curriculum, but that help her to see how much fun maths can be.

Finding such a person is the challenge! It might be worth having a chat with her current teacher or the maths lead in the school, to see if they can recommend someone. If you need to resort to online tutor websites to find someone, look for comments in their profile about being gentle and fun and confidence-giving, and call a few up - you'll get a better feeling for their personality and tutoring style that way.

LetItGoToRuin thank you.

I’ve got an appointment to talk to her teacher so I’ll see what they say. I’m not sure who the maths person is but I can find out.

I’ve asked for a kind, no pressure maths tutor, on our communities FB page.

I’m going to talk to some friends who are/were teachers. Different locations so can’t help with the actual “doing”, but it’s always worth talking.

Is there a mythical primary school maths textbook?

I don't know about a maths textbook as such, though the basics of the curriculum will be somewhere on the Gov.uk website.

We have a subscription to IXL which is aligned with the curriculum and breaks down maths topics by year and subject. It is a paid subscription but you can access ten questions per day for free. It's nice small chunks and my DD quite likes doing it. uk.ixl.com/math/

Brilliant LetItGoToRuin. I have a copy of the Primary National Curriculum but I’ve not looked at it for a few years, and then only for reading issues. I’ve had a quick skim of the Y5 programme of study. I’ll go through it with DD to see if there are issues with any particular areas.

Thanks so much for the heads up with IXL. I will have a look. I’m happy to pay a subscription. Anything that helps.

My sons found this helpful

https://www.whizz.com/

Why does she think girls can't do maths? Hopefully being in a boy heavy class will be an advantage to her - boys can be very supportive.
Try and encourage her to not compare herself to others. This book is great for developing a growth mindset

www.amazon.co.uk/You-Are-Awesome-Confidence-Bestseller/dp/1526361159/ref=nodl_

Thanks Redpostbox

I’d only take a guess at why she thinks boys are good at maths. I think it’s because they tell her how good they are. It’s important to them. It’s important that they are the best. It’s so important that they disrupt her-jog her elbow, sing under their breath, kick her. Not all the boys, but the ones who want maths to be their thing.

I didn’t really want to get into that!

As for having a Growth Mindset, the school is very keen on that. She’s now anxious that she doesn’t have one! It puts the issues on to the child rather than seeing things from a broader perspective. The boy whose dad went to Eton and works in banking, whose grandfather went to Eton and never worked DOES have an advantage over the girl whose parents didn’t get o level maths because they had to leave school to go to work. It’s unkind to put all the responsibility of years of privilege onto a 9 year old.

Anyhow. We will look at Mathsfactor and the GCP (cGP?) books

as school say she is doing fine, you could try turning it on its head.

Ask her to show you stuff.

Ask her how number lines work.
Ask her to show you how she does adding and subtracting (I'd expect columns)
Ask her to show you how she multiplies a two digit number by a 1 digit. if she an do that, get her to show you a 2 digit by 2 digit.
Say you've heard about 'chunking' for division and is that something she has heard of. Similarly 'bus stop'.

Similarly (especially if you can get hold of her y5 exercise books) you can ask her about fractions, and percentages, and shapes.
She might know about using number lines for time questions too.

if she is teaching you it could do wonders for her confidence. if you have access to her exercise book and then she can't remember you can google explanations together (or ask here).

Maths is a lot about confidence and having a go, so you are right to try to work on it.

How about an older girl - post GCSE/ A level or even degree level student to come in and help her?

Great ideas.

Her teacher was very kind about it so I’m sure she’ll give me her y5 maths books. What a simple but brilliant idea. That is better than any text book!

The teacher recommended the GCP books. They’re cheap enough so I’ll get the one that explains everything and the targeted one.

It would be good to get an older girl actually. Someone to mentor as well as tutor. I’ll put some feelers out.

There is a good book called "Maths for Mums and Dads" that explains how it is taught in schools now and it covers the whole of the primary school maths curriculum. Might be useful alongside a workbook for covering areas your child is less confident in.
Board games or card games that use number skills are great for increasing number fluency (speed) and confidence, especially if the child wins a lot and they are less stressful and more fun than a workbook!

I got the Collins Sats smasher books - there's 5 different ones and they were £2 each from Amazon. DD found arithmetic ok but struggled to work out what the wordy questions were asking, so we did a lot of careful reading to understand what was being asked.

By going through the workbooks, i could understand exactly where she was struggling and losing her confidence, and feed back to the teacher so they could demonstrate the current taught method.

We also have that awesome book linked above, it's a really fun read and good to pick bits out together to discuss. A growth mindset is about being willing to keep trying, not saying "I'm no good at that" but "I'm no good at that right now" and thinking about what you could do to change that. It's not about being top of the class, but improving yourself. Celebrate every progress, how does it feel when you can answer a question that you couldn't answer before (hopefully good!).

Great, Maths for Mum and Dads sounds good. I’ll try and read a copy.

Good idea about card games, she loves those. A friend said origami which she likes too. Those things are great alongside the textbook stuff.

Growth Mindset (tm) will it work for a kinesthetic learner and an INFJ on the MBTI ? That’s me, I’m not sure what DD is.

I’m very confused about why you want a tutor if she’s doing very well. A mentor might be better. There must be a girl she can work with surely? Most decent teachers keep the boys under control and don’t allow gender stereotyping. I think maybe you are unfair about the boys. You can also find very competent and confident girls.

Where I used to be a Maths Governor, we did find some girls tended to lack confidence in maths but rarely the high flyers. They took it in their stride. It was a greater issue with the ones we desperately wanted to get 100 in Sats but tended to have little self belief. Our high flying girls always did well.

Therefore I would definitely tackle any low self esteem and if the teacher is aware of the issue, surely they will ensure she isn’t over anxious about results and her work? That’s their job. Does she need more maths on top of school work? I’m not sure.

I mean a girl in her class who is equally good at maths.

I don’t really WANT a tutor, I’m just trying to work out what to do.

The school keep telling me she’s doing well, as in all her reports are positives. She doesn’t feel she is doing well. She’s anxious about maths. I don’t mind so much if she’s doing well or not, I just want her to not feel anxious.

I’m not sure I’m being unfair to the boys. There are a lot of them in the class. Out of those there are some really “forceful” characters who have decided being good at maths is their thing, it has value. Not boys and girls in general, in this class. She’s good at lots of things, but that’s okay because they don’t value art or language. It’s not her that’s comparing herself with others. It’s others comparing themselves to her, seeing she’s doing well, feeling threatened by this, and basically playing mind games with her.

But this is only about the boys in as much as they impact on her. For whatever reason what the teachers believe about her maths doesn’t match up to her feelings about her maths ability. She doesn’t seem to have a self esteem issue in any other area of her life.

This isn’t teacher bashing. Her school and teachers are amazing, not perfect, but I’ve sorted out the things that didn’t work myself and gone with the great stuff.

I’ve got the name of a tutor and I’ll talk to them. I’ll look at DDs maths workbooks and get her to teach me. I’ll buy the workbooks the teacher recommended and either work through them, or not! I’ll have a look at the on-line resources.

Does your school have booster groups for SATS? It's controversial but a "greater depth" booster group was transformative for my DD. Small group, minus the highest flyers, really lovely nurturing teacher, just what she needed.

I'm struggling to think how I could give DD a tutor without her interpreting that as her being behind.

You need a gentle, chatty, child lead tutor. I AM NOT selling my services here but I often tutor anxious kids, especially in maths. It really does work wonders

I could have written your post. DD is yr 5 going to yr 6 too. We started doodle maths (online app) and it has really helped. You can set the level for your child - we started it at the beginning of year 5 and set it at 7-8 years old to build up her confidence. She started at below average and is now 11.5 years standard while she’s only age 10! She’s more confident now and enjoys the rewards the app gives you. (Just to add I am nothing to do with doodle maths - just amazed how her school report is so different to last year!) we’ve asked her to do roughly 10 mins per day most days and she liked it as it’s on the ipad. We’ve encouraged and helped her too. She’s finally starting to believe in herself which is great to see - especially as she suffers from anxiety. Whatever you decide to do I wish you lots of luck!

OP

The CGP series are pretty good we've used them for the last year.

We've also got a maths for parents book which we use along side as to aid with learning.

I don’t think giving her more maths to do will help her maths anxiety at all.

She needs someone to work one to one with her to build her confidence.

Thanks all.

I’m sorry you’re DD has been anxious too Lunchgate. I think the little and often approach would help DD too.

This hasn’t come out of the blue for DD, she’s been involved in everything.

She says she gets a lot of TA support at school which is why her teacher thinks she’s so good. She’d like to really grasp things so they come easier to her. She’d like to give a tutor a go. We will look at the websites and books and decide what is going to work for her. We can try things out and monitor and change things if they’re not helping. Thanks for listening!

My DD is younger than yours (end of Y3) but sounds similar in many ways. She’s capable in maths but doesn’t love it and dislikes the competitive nature of some of her peers. DH and I both loved maths and I was starting to feel like I should do something to help DD to enjoy it more.

About 18 months ago I met someone through my hobby and found out she was a maths tutor. We weren’t looking for a tutor for DD but I found her inspirational to talk to, and just felt my DD would benefit from spending time with her 1:1. They had a number of sessions last year and DD really looked forward to them – it was very much about having fun and being creative with maths, and also about DD connecting with a lovely adult who had time just for her.

From what you’ve said about your DD, it sounds like she’d benefit from the same sort of thing.

Sadly this tutor moved away, and DD still misses her, and her old doubts about maths are resurfacing. I probably need to find her someone else.

Sorry LetItGoToRuin, I got sidetracked. We’ve got a few leads on tutors and I think what I’m realising is that DD needs to be really sure of the methods she’s been taught. I’m actually thinking of asking around the TAs in the school- if I take your kids to the park for an hour will you do tutoring with DD (for pay of course). The TAs know the methods used and are more local than the teachers.

It’s intereseting, a RL friend said just get her doing maths, origami, baking- let’s double the amount of flour and work out how much butter we’d need. So we will do that too but I think she needs both.

It’s great to be able to think things through on here. Thanks all!

The weighing and estimating discussing distance on journeys is certainly what dc teacher advised me too Op.

CGP maths practice has great sections on all this too. The new year 6 one has just arrived but so far so good.

Must admit I have to dip into answer section quite regularly to check we are on the right track

Lack of confidence in maths is unfortunately quite common in girls, even high fliers. It’s one of the reasons girls who do well at GCSE are less likely to progress to A-level maths than boys with the same result.

I make a point with top sets of showing them the top ten results for exams and commenting on how it’s equally split between boys and girls (or girls are doing better) because loud, cocky boys can often give the perception that they are doing better than they are.

Girls tend to underestimate their actual performance so reinforce how well she is doing, and make her aware of how it’s her perception that’s the issue, not her ability in maths.

They also are more likely to need reassurance that their answer is correct before putting it to paper so sitting next to a similarly able and sympathetic girl that she’s allowed to talk to about the maths can be helpful.