Maths in Reception

[Puzzledmumof3]

Hi

My second son is in reception and I think is not being challenged at all. I’m not concerned with pushing him ahead but he seems bored generally and can be silly/misbehave which I wonder if is part to do with it.

I just wondered if all receptions were like this as I understand with 30 kids in the class it is tricky to provide differentiation.

To clarify he is def not a genius but is older in the year and can for example add two lots of two digit numbers, count in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s, add multiple number together, do simple multiplication etc.

Thanks

Reception is more like nursery than 'big' school. It should be predominately learning through directed play. So the maths will happen in a range of ways, not just some short taught sessions. For example, measuring through cooking and making play dough, shapes through building and construction, money and counting through shop role play, etc.

And it's not really about pushing lots of new concepts as such, it's about them becoming really secure with the core number concepts, understanding the fundamentals inside and out such as what numbers are and what they mean using concrete, pictorial/graphical and abstract methods, looking at how to represent those numbers through bar models, part whole models, etc. and how to use number lines/squares, ensuring number bonds are secure from 2 to 10+, etc.

In year 1 the national curriculum will start to kick in and more formal learning will start to be phased in much more.

Thanks- What happens if they are ready for more formal learning though? They just have to get on with it and wait for that to kick in?

My son is in year 1 and they are just discovering "doubles" which is the two times table. The other week it was counting to 20 and then backwards and he's been doing that since he was 3.

I downloaded reading eggs and bought some homeschooling maths books off Amazon to nurture his interest in numbers. Maths is his favourite subject as he's confident in it, so we do about 10 mins a day.

Nurture and encourage :)

He is definitely berry capable in maths as a lot of those sounds like Year 2 objectives. Have you had a parents evening with his teacher to get their views?

Very not berry!

the problem is that at this age it is easy to learn to do this stuff, but much harder to understand what you are doing, so he is likely to be going over this again, in different ways to get the basic understanding in place, which is the foundation for later work

When dt were in reception they were taken out of class for 30 minutes a day along with two others for extension work. They had a great teacher who noted these 4dc needed stretching, just as those struggling need extra support those that are capable also need support. Yes reception is about socialisation, learning through play etc but for those dc that are ahead they sometimes need a more structured approach.

yes I totally agree they need the foundations. I think he really gets the way numbers work though…

I think he’s had so many years of play based learning that he’s ready for a bit more structure. Tricky though as I know in reception the main focus is the social aspect/behaviour/getting them used to school.

It’s tough because I really do think he’s bored but it sounds like the set- up is pretty standard

I would just chill out about it to be honest, most reception children do misbehave at some point and if you start teaching him extra stuff because you think he needs a challenge this will further contribute to his boredom in class.

We all like to think our children are a bit more advanced than their peers and explain their naughty behaviour by telling ourselves they’re just bored because they’re waiting for the others to catch up. The reality is they’re usually just a bit naughty and not much brighter than the next person.

It's unlikely he's sat bored for long. Most reception classes would have a brief 5-15 minute whole group input for maths and then some activities for exploring maths as part of continuous provision ("play") and some guided focus tasks. He is advanced if he can do all of that, and he will be challenged a little throughout primary, but be prepared that he won't feel challenged in maths often. The curriculum makes it hard to focus on challenging the top children.

Theyvwont push him on
It's a dirty word. He will just gain much value mastery - if he is that able. I've never met a child who was that far ahead. Bright sure.

Classic younger sibling - probably listened into and picked up older one's home learning! Or has been actively hothoused by bossy older sib...

We started maths factor in term 2 of reception (lockdown), also reading eggs mathseeds was appreciated too.

It's difficult for extension work in reception unless reading is also ahead. Both of mine seem to prefer maths over literacy and my older one tries to teach the younger one everything - she's more of a tiger mum than I am!

precisely! Also they are ultra competitive with each other and maths seems another competition…

I’m not even necessarily saying he’s bright, just that he’s that much older for maybe being a winter birthday and 2nd child and he seems bored currently…was really just wondering if schools did anything outside of the standard reception play based learning but sounds like other than a few exceptions it would be the same anywhere.

If he is willing to push himself in his play based learning sure. The resources are there.

Play based learning doesn't suit every character, just as more formal learning doesn't suit everyone when that appears.

The point of reception is to try to even the playing field and to full the gaps, whatever they are.

I would suggest that not being able.to direct himself is an area to direct himself in - the resources are there for him to do, amd expand their thinking in all ways.

Just do things at DCs level at home. I got told off in Y1 because I explained tens and ones and did column addition. That's Y2 stuff and you can't move ahead in the current maths curriculum you have to explore the concept further. Which would be fine but DD was about as far ahead as your DS and she finds school maths mind numbingly boring.

Sorry I missed this, totally agree. I am def not teaching him at home otherwise the problem just continues down the road, however he is learning himself and has an older sibling so there’s not much I can do on that front!

Also I’m not saying he’s brighter than his peers, far from it. It’s just in reception there are huge differences from age, having siblings etc.

And agree about the naughtiness/misbehaving and trust me I could have a whole separate thread on that. I’m certainly not suggesting it’s all (or even mostly) down to Boredom but it’s just trying to establish whether it was something worth discussing with school. Sounds like probably not!

My daughter is very able in maths. She's never been taught ahead. She extended herself - told how to double in YR, she was multiplying by 64 and 128 in Y1 just by doubling over and over. She got a lot out of that freedom to play with numbers and discover patterns and connections for herself. It has stood her in such good stead, she seems to have a deep and intuitive grasp of numbers now. It didn't get her out of having to do weekly times tables homework and tests all through junior school, when she'd cracked them all in Y1, but she finds it incomprehensible that anyone could call maths boring just because a worksheet is easy or she already knows a times table.

In YR especially they can do the work quickly and go back to whatever playing they are interested in, whether that's roleplaying hairdressers or figuring out how to count in 17s. They are more likely to be bored because they couldn't find something they wanted to play with, or because they don't want to leave the play to do "sit down work", than specifically that the sit down work is too easy. As parents I think we are too inclined to blame easiness, wonder if the child is bored by that and maybe even plant that seed unwittingly. A child complaining that school is boring generally may get a negative reaction from a parent, whereas one who specifically says the work was easy is more likely to get some sort of praise or even just an internal ego stroke. So we can unwittingly reinforce complaints of easy = boring.

Rather than pursuing harder worksheets I would give access to lots of pasta shapes, numicon or multilink, and maybe Dieines apparatus if you are going into extra digits, so he can learn to be more self-directed, as the PP put it, and explore numbers more for himself. Also, equip him with the language so he can frame his own questions eg "what is 3 lots of 4?". If he complains of something being boring or too easy, maybe you can give him a push towards extending it himself. "That sounds interesting, I wonder how you'd do it if there were 10 bicycles" without telling him the answer or teaching him how you'd do it. Just pique his interest and get him to talk you through his ideas. But an easier or harder worksheet should not make a material difference to how he experiences his day in YR.

As ideas DD used doubling to develop multiplication, including multiplying by odd numbers, counting in 2s extended to times tables to 20-odd, and without being taught column addition she developed her own methods for adding and subtracting 3 digit numbers. Your son can doubtless find a different direction. But there is loads he can do without needing to do Y2 maths. That is the magic of maths, there's loads to explore that doesn't require a lot of knowledge. Trial and error seems to be a really important method in primary and very much encouraged in the "greater depth"/ sideways stretch arena.

This is great advice.

Another one saying that’s how it is.

Maths by its nature is harder to differentiate without teaching new content as most often the answer is just the answer so it’s hard to add an extension).

My DS could do all the counting in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s in reception but wasn’t 100% sure on applications of these. All the practice that they do helps with this, even though it feels like there’s limited progress. Some kids need the repetition to learn the pattern, others will use the same class to be understanding odds/evens, others will be getting a really deep understanding of how addition works (crossing the 10’s and how this works mathematically).

I would have thought counting in 3s (ie you 3 times table) is quite a bit more advanced that expected in Reception (though I'm sure someone will come along in a minute and say their child knew their 7x time before their 3rd birthday!)

We've had this all the way along. DS in year 4 now and still saying maths is too easy and boring. This is with me having yearly chats with teachers about him needing sufficient challenge and I'm a governor too.

I've always done extra at home with him. In EY we bought a numicon set (the teachers one) but he grew out of that fast. I'd recommend getting some of the number cubes, as they can be used for a few years for addition/subtraction/multiplication/division. My son liked building with them too!

www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Resources-Snap-Cubes-Set/dp/B000G3LR9Y

In reception I'd just go with the flow, I know my son enjoyed maths more in Year 1 when it was a bit more formal at tables and he was doing worksheets.

activities like maths puzzles, riddles, code-breaking challenges, logic puzzles, spatial puzzles etc are also all very good for extending a child without just teaching 'harder' work, and will stand them in very good stead later on for other aspects of maths. There are websites and books of those for KS1, and it sounds like he would enjoy those.

e.g. the puzzles where you have to move the cars around to get out of the traffic jam. Or cutting out complex 3D shapes and gluing the tabs together. Or simple sudoku or magic squares. Or those puzzles where you get hints about things like Mr Smith doesn't live in the red house and have to work out where everyone lives. Or simple ciphers and code challenges. Or the 'riddles' where you ask people to pick a number, and then add/subtract/divide etc by other numbers, and at the end, you can guess which number they chose - can he figure out how they work? All that kind of thing.

And even when he's bored with things like adding or multiplying and has to spend ages doing worksheets on it, that is sometimes when children discover interesting things about how numbers work, by trying to get it done faster - they spot interesting patterns, and can be challenged to explain why.

The Primary maths challenge is fun when he's older, and I've just noticed that they now have a 'First' maths challenge, for children aged 7-9. He won't quite be ready for that yet, but he could start looking at some of the questions, or you could, and think about how you approach them. The challenges (all the way up to senior levels available from various organisations) are good for using relatively 'ordinary' maths in terms of difficulty, in more interesting and challenging ways - i.e., the children don't have to have learned much more difficult maths than expected for their year, but they have to figure out how and when to use it.
www.primarymathschallenge.org.uk/fmc-about

What happens if they are ready for more formal learning though? They just have to get on with it and wait for that to kick in?

A state reception, and in my experience a private reception class too, is always going to be play based - as that is the whole premise of a reception class. Formal sit down learning isn't part of the early years reception. They may do short taught sessions, and if resources allow, some children may get additional support if at either end of the scale to meet their needs. This will very much depend on the school and staffing/funding though.

Op, does your child know how to effectively use lots of different mathematical modelling resources: bar models, part whole models, number lines, number squares, etc? These are things that he will be able to take forward with him as he moves through school, as they are resources used right through the ks1 and 2 curriculums and help children really grasp number knowledge.

There are lots and lots of maths based play he can engage in. Problem solving, logic, reasoning, etc all come under maths. We have 4ys at school who enjoy maths based puzzles and games which expand their mathematical understanding much more than just making the numbers bigger.

In some ways the early years curriculum is more flexible for challenge than key stage 1 and 2. As learning is done through play and can be self directed, opportunities to expand his own play are almost limitless, especially when it comes to maths.

What are his other subject areas like? And his other social/emotional type capabilities/. Are there other areas he could be working on too, which his mathematical awareness might benefit?