How to help child understand long division

[angeltattoo]

My daughter is in Yr 6 and in her mock sats it is clear she is struggling with long division.

I want to help her but so want to do so in a way that is consistent with how she is being taught at school.

Are there any resources any teachers can recommend that would help? Work books or online videos?

Thanks in advance. She hates me 'teaching' her anything, wouldn't believe a word I said in lockdown, loves to hear it all from her teachers though.

So I want to help without the friction! So a guide or video that is consistent with how she is being taught at school would be much appreciated.

We are on half term and her homework is to do the work she got wrong in her sats papers so I can't ask at a school and it needs doing before she goes back.

One out of two marks may be given for a correct standard method even if the answer is wrong. Standard methods allowed are short or long division. So teaching anything else is risky from that point of view.

Seconding this, although SATS papers will also always ask a question with a prime number divisor so that you can't just use this method alone!

I had to almost reteach long division to a friend's son I was tutoring, and my daughter, for A level maths. You essentially follow the same sort of algorithm to do polynomial division, and neither of them had ever done enough long division to have embedded the method permanently. Tells you how much it's valued after primary ...

(doi I like long division!)

I might asked my son who's just started a maths degree, whether he knows long division - answers could be anything from of course and why on earth are you asking, or why would I do that on the basis that he can work out a method as he goes along ...

@Catacapa thank you! However I did say division by factors won't work with prime numbers. I'm a tutor and sadly so many pupils have never been introduced to this method in school and obviously find it much easier! In fact several have "taught" their teachers who didn't know it and that is an amazing confidence boost for children!
There was a discussion on 5Live Breakfast show about the purpose of teaching KS2 pupils long division this week, other than gaining 2 marks on SATs, there seemed little purpose.

Yet another example of the poor links between the primary and secondary curriculum. Grammar is even worse.

I would speak to her teacher and ask how they teach long division. There’s a few methods used so it’s probably best to use the one that’s being taught otherwise you may confuse her. If she hates you teaching her if finances allow can you get a tutor? We got a tutor for one of our children who used the same method as the school and they broke it down into understandable chunks for them. I’m a teacher and feel your pain, my children hated being taught by me.

I found Carole Vorderman's The Maths Factor website in the first lockdown to be great for teaching all aspects of KS1 and KS2 Maths. The subscription fee was waived in lockdown and there's a small fee now. Long division was one of the hardest things for them to pick up even on this but we're nearly there now.

Nope. This screenshot is from this year's mark scheme, showing the standard methods.

Former secondary maths teacher here, and I just didn't teach "long division". The main thing that makes dividing by a two digit number harder is that you don't know the times table. So write down the times table, then do it as "short division", writing it nice and large so there's room to write the remainders in. (You do need to be able to work out the remainders in your head, but if you can't, then that needs working on before worrying about division by large numbers!)

Unfortunately, you're not allowed to do that in primary, because the method is mandated. (I believe that you can have both marks if you get the answer right, but if it's wrong, you need the right method for the method mark - so if you can do it reliably another way, you can get away with it.)

That’s correct @lanthanum

You did, I was just pointing out if you analyse the past few years then the papers are specifically written to avoid children relying on this (very useful) method unfortunately.

You are correct @lanthanum but I always taught the short method for dividing by two digit numbers in year six because the chances of going wrong are smaller and if you get it right, you get the two marks whatever the method. If you get it wrong and haven't used the proper old fashioned long division method, you only lose one mark so for the sake of the children understanding what they're doing and why they're doing it, it's worth it. I used to teach the long method as an intervention for the more able children.

Exactly. I recently read an account of what mathematics was taught to undergraduates at Cambridge in the 18th century. A large part of the final exam was the extraction of square and cubed roots to 3 decimal places "by hand", for which they used tedious iterative methods not unlike long division.
But no sane person would bother with this these days, because it's a single button press on a calculator. Nor would anyone waste the time on teaching it, when there is more important/relevant stuff to use the time on.
Long division is a relic of a bygone era, like slide rules and log tables (and it's amazing Gove & co didn't resurrect those...). The continued prominence of long division in the primary curriculum says that in England we are going about the teaching of maths in a very 18th century way.

While it's true that polynomial division is an important skill for A level and above, and that long division is one way to do it, there are other ways (google "algebraic juggling"). Most people, if taught them, find them less cumbersome.

Short division is fine and will gain at least one mark, even if the answer is wrong. See the page from the mark scheme that I posted earlier.

It's just short division plus dealing with the remainders.

I disagree that ‘the chances of going wrong are smaller’, having marked several papers where a child has chosen to use this method to divide by 83, for example - they inevitably make a mistake in their mental subtraction that they possibly wouldn’t have if they had used column subtraction within long division.