If your school had a presentation to parents about math teaching in KS2...

[lljkk]

What would you expect them to cover?

We had such a talk today and I thought it was a bit lame too basic. Other parents felt the same. We were shown a segmented stick, a 100-chart (all the numbers to 100), and worked through examples including stuff like partitioning to add and subtract.

Lots of talk, but that was about it. Apparently there will be another talk about how they teach multiplcation and division; I asked about fractions and decimals. Teacher who led the talk seemed to think fractions and decimals would be only worth a minute or 2 at the end ... but surely I dunno? 2/3 of the children will work a lot on fractions and decimals by the end of Y6?

Maybe I need to suggest more ideas of what to talk about. What things would you expect or want to be covered in a one-hour talk of how maths are taught in KS2 at your school?

[lljkk]

Ah, quite boring am I?

[cuppateaplease]

No not boring at all - maths always used to be my favorite subject actually hmmm.......
talk sounds more like KS1 stuff.
I would expect details on what is covered in KS2 numeracy framework, what they would be covering each year and what would be expected of a 'typical' child.
I once did a helping in schools course that was quite helpful in detailing all this. I can dig it out later - but I'm just off out for the day! I'm sure one of the other helpful MNers will be along soon!

They could easily have covered diff strategies for adition/subtraction and mutiplication/division in one hit - these are pretty essential as they are way different to how I used to do them back in the dark ages!

[lljkk]

DC are high achieving so I feel like a ponce for moaning. I wouldn't have any way of knowing what the 'typical' achievement is in Y3-Y6, so in theory I could flatter myself that my dc are far off the scale and that's why the talk seemed much too ruddy basic.

OTOH, I reckon that the parents who attend these things tend to have dc who do better than average -- precisely because we are quite involved parents.

We had handouts about the numeracy framework, but that wasn't part of the talk we heard, even though the language of the framework specs is almost gobbledigook for those not trained as educators.

I agree with you, just helping out on a few occasions would probably be much more useful for me in understanding how they teach various subjects.

[SlartyBartFast]

perhaps you will get the decimals and fractions later on?
although i think fractions come first.

i did a free basic maths course which was excellent.

[cuppateaplease]

lljkk - managed to dig out my notes from the course but see that we only covered maths in KS1!
DS is now in Y6 and must admit that most of the KS2 homework/exercise books he has bought home have been pretty basic maths even though he's in the top group! It has included a lot of fractions and decimals, plus 2D/3D shapes perimeter/circumferance etc. Even by Y6 he has only covered areas of rectangles and not ventured onto triangles and circles and i don't think they have done volume either! The only time he has had homework that was actually challenging was last week cos they've been revising for SATS!!
I think the reason that the talk was so basic is that the numeracy they do is basic!
I used to have a list of all the level requirements, if you want em I'm sure i could find the link again but sounds like your DC will not have any problems!

[ellingwoman]

Our junior school does them every few years. They concentrate on the 'new-fangled' way of doing things. Chunking, partitioning etc. They show you adding, subtraction, multiplication, division in year 3, then year 4, 5 and 6. Then you get a one-sheet handout with examples. Very useful for helping with homework and not too boring.

It IS only the interested parents who turn up though! Out of the 20-odd parents who turned up last time only 2 weren't parent governors, PTA members or involved in school life in any way.