Any math teachers advice please

[Hairgician]

My ds11 sat the SEAG transfer test in november. Outcome was a band 6 score of 171.
Raw scores were : test 1 - 30/56 correct, 9 were for maths
test 2 38/56 correct, 16 were for maths.

I have been in and out to the principal last few weeks over it, (she taught him through P6 (n.i curriculum here). Her opinion was that with his abilities he was capable of achieving a band 3 score. BIL has my dh convinced the school is not teaching maths properly. I dont see any evidence to support that and no other parents have mentioned any issues with maths either.

I have attached his CAT and PTM scores, any math teachers here can you tell me what you think? I think I have narrowed down key areas for supporting him, namely focus and attention (not rushing and checking his work), word problems that have multiple steps involved. Thanks in advance.

Cats scores are standardised on 100.

This means an average child will get 100.

The cats scores are low. Some of them are very low.

It looks like your child has difficulties with spatial reasoning and awareness - this was low in p4 and is very low in p6.

Verbal isn't great, but the sorts of verbal skills measured in cats are not similar to the kinds you need to understand maths worded questions.

Maths worded questions come in quite limited types and it is possible to drill them quite easily. If you want to do this I would recommend the Schofield and sims mental arithmetic series.

www.schofieldandsims.co.uk/mental-arithmetic/

Thanks for replying, I will be sure to check those out. The parent I spoke to has said the spatial awareness one is a tricky one, not one you can work on to improve.
Are the low scores down to his natural abilities or is this down to teaching do you think? I had him screened for dyscalculia, it didnt flag anything. Is this likely to be the case that maths will be something he will need to really work at ?

You can work to improve spatial awareness but it is more tricky than worded problems.

I used to teach interventions in a primary in England.

Stuff you can do to improve it:

Buy lego and encourage him to use it.
Buy multi link and encourage him to use it to build "houses" etc. a common question in gcse maths is about 3D shapes and what they look like from the top/bottom/side (links to architectural drawings)

Making a kaleidoscope helps with imagining where reflections go to.

Dancing and physical movement can also help with reflections and rotations.

Polydron is also good for making patterns and 3D shapes. It's priced for the classroom rather than home use but it's brilliant for nets and 3D shapes. www.polydron.co.uk

Basically spatial awareness is 2d and 3D shapes plus reflections and rotations. To improve that it's about getting experience with them in real life.

His spatial skills in p4 were in the average range (not low). His P6 scores were low.

His PTM scores were all average though so there seems to be a bit of a mismatch. Was he anxious during the seag? Did he do a lot of practice tests?

He did them yes, they had a transfer club after school on a monday and through p6 they did 2 per week, then they were sent home with practice papers to do over summer hols- enough for 2 a week, i think i managed to get him to do 3.. if hes not motivated/not in the mood his performance isnt great, so I think his attitude has an effect on him. His actual classwork books from last year look ok, the maths workbooks have very little in the way of incorrect work, most of it is correct, same apparently with this years maths work in class. Same with the maths homework, they get a set of 15 questions mon-thurs to do, he usually gets anywhere from 12-15/15. The teacher has also said when hes called on in class to answer anything verbally he can usually rattle it off no problem , so I dont know what to think, Im wondering if its down to exam experience/strategies, as in the practice papers he was hitting 90,92,94% after a while but there would have been the odd one here and there where he would drop to 60-70%.

I do notice though he tends to rush to get it over with, which means then he makes really silly mistakes, with things I know he knows how to do and he isnt checking work either, something we are working on.