BIDMAS question - what's the right answer

[Overstating]

7-5+6x13?

Thanks!

For those interested, teacher was receptive and had a friendly discussion (around a whiteboard, my pen was red ) and clearly there is an actual misconception underneath it all.

I felt old as they video'd our whiteboard to share with their maths lead group and will come back to me - teaching has changed..! Just not principles of maths.

Waiting to see how the conversation goes when the maths lead has unpicked the issue. But I'm glad I raised it as it wasn't just an oversight, there really is a misunderstanding.

And I still get smiled at. But not by DC since I'm the most embarrassing parent in the world, obv.

@Overstating - I felt old as they video'd our whiteboard to share with their maths lead group and will come back to me

That sounds like there are multiple teachers in the school who may not understand. Hopefully not as this is really basic maths.

Well done OP!
(And slightly worrying how many children the teacher may have mis-taught previously).

Great outcome OP, well done.

Oh god how terrifying, oh god how terrifying, oh god...

^^repeat as above: confusion comes when they use the mnemonic and think it means addition before subtraction.

Primary teacher should definitely know- how can those few of you above defend teaching the curriculum incorrectly??? It's not difficult to look up and 10/11 year olds will sit national tests with these questions in.

BUT - someone explain how it could be PEDMAS please? Parenthesis doesn't mean brackets- it punctuates part of a sentence that can be removed and what is left still makes sense. Can be punctuated with brackets, commas or dashed.

Ah in fairness, think teacher is dyslexic with some impact in maths (and is awesome with SEN kids) so I think the referral to maths lead was in recognition that they wanted to check their own understanding rather than make a switch on the spot because I said something different. Have a good relationship so wasn't all guns blazing. I'd rather the point of principle got clarified so it's taught accurately from now on.

This is basic. Absolutely basic. There’s no way she should be checking whether she’s wrong or not with the maths lead over this-if she didn’t immediately reconsider she’d got it wrong when confronted she seriously shouldn’t be teaching maths, no matter how good she is with the “SEN kids”.

Children with SEN still need a competent teacher, if not more so than the rest of the class.

Purple I'm not sure how happy I'd be with a teacher immediately taking a parent's word for something being wrong unless they had backed it up with book/website links.

eg if a teacher was teaching that 1 is prime and I told them it wasn't, I'd expect them to check not just believe me.

PEMDAS/BODMAS is confusing. Try GEMS. G Grouping Symbols (parentheses/brackets) E Exponents (indices) M multiply/divide (order is interchangable) S subtract/add (order is interchangable)

I don’t mean that they should take their word for it. I meant that the teacher should recognise she’d made a daft mistake because she really understood it.

Just spotted my “recognise” got autocorrected to “reconsider” in the first post. Hopefully the second clarified what I meant!

recognise makes much more sense.

Purple I'm not sure how happy I'd be with a teacher immediately taking a parent's word for something being wrong unless they had backed it up with book/website links.

The thing is they should know whatever it is, so when a mistake is pointed out they'd see and understand why. How can they teach something if they have no understanding of it and realise why it's right or wrong?

The teacher getting something 'wrong' can happen in any subject. So it could just be a straight fact not a lack of underpinning understanding (as in this example).

The main thing is that this teacher was willing to be explained to rather than digging his/her heels in.

in an ideal world, yes, primary school teachers would be all over it. But I find maths quite comfortable. My grammar, sentence structure and knowledge of fronted adverbials on the other hand is crap.

I suppose I could make a massive fuss, embarrass the teacher and make sure the children think it's important to make the most of someone being wrong. I'd rather engage constructively and hope that it helps the teacher as well as making sure the class are taught better.

And in the meantime, I really appreciate that my child is learning that it's OK to make mistakes, be challenged to think again and learn from it. Not just by being told but by seeing their teacher have the humility and teachability to do it themselves.

I think it’s ok if a teacher admits the error.
When he was in primary school my son was told 1 was prime. I went it to speak to her about it as I didn’t want him taught inaccurately.
I accidentally wrote something wrong on the board this week and one of my students (aged 16) corrected me! I laughed and said ‘thank you, I must be tired!’ and it was fine. I acknowledge that’s different to actually thinking something wrong is right but it’s still an example of how teachers are only human.

I actually think the way OP's teacher was receptive to the OP shows signs of a great teacher.

It's certainly possible to have a misconception about a basic principle. It's worrying that it has got to this point before anyone noticed it.

Individuals make mistakes from simple errors to full blown misunderstandings of concepts and the system should be set up to catch these mistakes. How did no one senior/assessing the teacher spot the problem earlier? Did earlier parents not question it because they didn't know the maths or because they believe you should never question a teacher and "let them get on with teaching"?

I really appreciate that my child is learning that it's OK to make mistakes, be challenged to think again and learn from it. Not just by being told but by seeing their teacher have the humility and teachability to do it themselves This!

I can well imagine how the teacher’s misunderstanding has gone unnoticed. BIDMAS is a small part of the y6 curriculum, one or two lessons at most. Unless one of those lessons was observed, how would the head or anyone else know the teacher didn’t understand ? Even if they did observe, unless a maths specialist they may not notice if not paying close attention. Teacher training might have had some basic maths test (there’s one to get on the course) but the pass mark isn’t 100% so they could have got this question type wrong.

Most children who get a question wrong will shrug their shoulders and move on. Not many will go home and discuss with their parents. Of those that do, not all parents will work out the answer (and this thread shows lots of parents would get the same incorrect answer as the teacher). Not many who get it right will be certain enough to go in and challenge the teacher.