Reception and "maths"!

[daisy243]

Hello, just wondered what other people's children do in reception with regards to "maths" (I don't mean long division or fractions!) We had parents eve and teacher said dd was "right where she should be" with regards to numbers. As far as I could tell her "maths" ability hadn't changed since preschool! So have spent a bit of time with her and she can now count to 100 and recognise all the numbers up to 100. She can do simple adding and subtracting.
What do other children do? Is "maths" not a focus in reception? Get a bit bored of "reception is all about play!" It was year one when I went to school! And it wasn't all about play
Bee

FS2 targets for number work include things like being able to count 10 objects (not the same as counting to 10 btw).

Work is usually done in other ways than writing out sums - so maybe using potato prints to make a repeating pattern, or looking at the differences in height of the children - who is taller, who is shorter, or perhaps with simple money work eg how do you make 9p (trying to avoid 9 pennies!).

All of those things I would classify as play.

Well my DD's teacher at parent's evening said dd's target was to count up to 20 as in 13+7 etc....sadly she is not doing this at school, so we spent a little bit of time doing it with her as she loves maths. We got some join the dots books to help with number recognition up to 100 and sometimes do some computer games. But to answer your question, she hasn't made much progress at all in maths at school. She already started reception knowing the greater smaller, count objects to 10 etc so I guess as far as maths is concerned, she's at best spent the year revising/applying through play what she knew already ... hope this helps!!

over here (ireland) they only do up to number 5 in junior infants... learning to recognise and write the numbers and simple adding up to 5.

dd loves maths and i'm going a bit further with her at home but what she's doing in school is very basic stuff

Hi,

My DS is in Yr 1 now but in reception he did numbers up to 100, number bonds to 10 (and possibly 20 - can't remember!), shapes - 2D and 3D, simple addition - 2 1-digit numbers and a 2-digit number plus a 1-digit number. Also I know they differentiate the work by letting the children use blocks or number lines for their calculations or just to do it in their heads if they are able.

And probably lots more that I'm not aware of. We have a school that is pretty strong on Maths so are very lucky (and he is quite able) so I suspect a lot of this is yr1 work???

Now in yr 1 he has recently done fractions, time, weighing and measuring, and he did addition of 2 2-digit numbers before Christmas. This week they have been doing estimating. Also he currently has a target to use 'mathematical terminology' .

k.

Hi Daisy,

Reception in changing, as will Year 1, and I think there will be more and more posts like yours over the next few years as the new Early Years curriculum gets more implemented in schools.

There is going to be an increasing focus on play in Foundation Stage, adn Year 1 is seen as a transition year rather than fully into the formality of KS1.

This could be good - well organised, structured play sessions can extend children's learning incredibly (you only need to think of role play areas as shops, cafes, post offices, travel agents etc to see the potenetial for loads of maths learning).

But the problem is that in many schools I have been in lately it is not being implemented in this way and the children are given a lot more free play than they have in the past, and this free play is not carefully structured and differentiated and does not have sufficient adult input to extend each child at the appropriate level.

A good constructive play environment is incredibly hard to achieve, and I have seen few that are managing this change in curriculum well. It won't help children who are 3-5 yrs at the moment, but I can't see it lasting. The emphasis will have to change again, or else a lot of infant teachers are going to have to have a lot more training.

Just my view, but a fairly well informed one.

I think it is fair to say that most children round here come into reception able to count confidently to 20, but not all of them understand the meaning of the numbers. Numeracy in reception for DS (now in Y4) consisted of lots of play with smaller/larger, shape naming, counting on 1, or 2 using a number line. By year 1, great excitement, they were subtracting 9 by taking away 10 and adding on 1.
In reception, I thought this approach was outrageous, as DS could do sums like 23+18 or 325+510 in his head. He was certainly not the only one in reception who could answer queations like: "there are 32 children in the class, and we have 6 away today, so how many are here" (I used to help in class, and heard plenty getting these right)
After a while I started to realise however, that many of the children could COUNT, but not much else, so fair enough, they did need to cover a lot of basic stuff very thoroughly. But it meant the more advanced ones had to wait a long time before getting anything new to learn.

In short, for reading, reception covers a lot of easy "whole class" phonic work, which is revision for the ones already reading, but they do get harder books to read at home, and more challenging writing tasks. For maths, however, in reception they get a lot of easy "whole class" work, and a lot of very easy number writing tasks.

Last year in constructive play maths they did heavier\lighter (weighed various things on scales adding two different things together etc), taller\ shorter, they made a lot of different three d shapes and in the play area they had at various times a shop, garden centre, travel agents and vets surgery. Then in formal sit down maths they followed the Abacus scheme so basic adding, subtracting, number lines, number bonds to 10, counting on from 10 etc. They also covered money (coins only) and giving change
DD is described by the school as a very able mathmatician she was additonally taught to count in 2s, 5s and 10s, odd and even numbers and note money in addition to coins.

Having thought more about this, while typing the prevous saga, I wonder if one of the problems is that many children's numeric ability far exceeds their figure-writing ability, so the teachers seem to wait for their pencil skills to catch up before giving them any real "sums" to do.

Count,recognise and order numbers to a hundred , count in 2s and 10s addition 2 1-digits or 2 digit +single digit.Suntractio, number bonds to 10, and beginning to learn about place value with arrow cards.Counting money (1ps 2ps and 5ps),doubling and whether numbers are even or odd.
All this and it's not even easter yet!

Is that at a state school brass band?

Is that at a state school brass band?

Yes but it is a mixed year class with YR1 and the reception and Y1 do the same 'maths on the carpet'

I have helped in a reception class where several of the children could not even count beyond three (in one case beyond two) so I mean couldn't even say 1, 2, 3, 4, which I must say amazed me.

choccypig my DS1 is pretty good at maths now (he is in yr 6) but certainly couldn't count conifdently to 20 at the start of FS2 (or even the end if memory serves - he always used to miss out 16 )

DS gets maths challenges home occasionally and they are things like counting and recording numbers on forms and adding them together, or sorting out coins, or going on shape hunts. I think its great, its how to use maths and what its for rather than how to count to ever increasing numbers.