Year 7 maths - DS & silly mistakes

[agnesf]

I'd welcome some advice from a maths teacher.

DS is good & confident at maths - level 6 sats. However now he has started Yr 7 in top set I have noticed that his primary school maths strategies do not seem to be working and he is making lots of silly mistakes.

In year 6 he seems to have been able to do lots of working out in his head but in my opinion this just doesn't work for the things he's doing now e.g. algebraic substitution where he needs to multiply out brackets etc. I've just looked at his homework and he's got about half of them wrong because he's missed steps out. I've pointed this out to him but he is being very stubborn with me and refuses to listen.

What should I do - leave it and hope than the teacher sorts it out? Get him to do it again which will almost certainly end in a heated dispute? Talk to his teacher?

His presentation is not too bad except he is trying to fit 3 digit numbers into 1 square on tiny squared paper - I also pointed this out but again was met with a stubborn response. But the main thing is that he isn't showing his workings in a logical clearly laid out way.

Its really frustrating because I know he has the ability to do well. Or is this just par for the course for a year 7 boy and am I expecting too much?

Have you told him he has half of them wrong? Does he care that he is handing in wrong homework or is he just rushing to finish so that he can do other things?

If he cares, then I'd suggest saying 'you have x of these wrong, why don't you see if you can spot which ones and correct them'

If he doesn't care, tell him that he can either redo it now, or he'll be handing it in with your writing alongside it explaining that you are aware this isn't his best effort but he refused to give it a good go so if the teacher thinks a detention for poor homework is warranted, he has your support.

Today he didn't care that he had almost half of them wrong but I know he will care if he gets a bad mark. He was rushing and distracted today but I do think its been a big jump from what he was doing at primary to what he's now being asked to do. I think writing the note that you suggest to the teacher is a step too far at the moment.

But I think he needs to take on board that working out anything but simple algebra in your head is easier if you write down the intervening stages. However looking at what he's done in class its not clear if the teacher has told him this.

We'll see what tomorrow brings but I'm not going to nag him to change it & if he gets a bad mark maybe the teacher will tell him why.

He sounds exactly like my DS at that age. I did hassle him about it and so did the school and it did improve. He's Y9 now and has continues to do well in the top set. I think his presentation actually improved as the work got more challenging.
I also find bribary works well -£1 a day minus 10p for each silly mistake or illegible bit (not just maths)

Thanks for that purple.

I hate nagging and yesterday I felt like I was asking him every 10 mins when he was going to start doing it.

Did you get any guidance from school about how he should set out his work?

After moaning at him yesterday for not showing workings I looked through some stuff he'd done in class where he'd just written down the final answer, the teacher had marked and not made any comment about lack of workings.

Also in class they seem to get lots of worksheets where they just have to fill in the final answer. Is this normal?

No, it's not normal. It's also not good practice. I spend ages telling my classes that maths isn't about providing an answer but a solution. If your answer isn't accompanied by an argument (working out) as to why it is correct, then you might as well have plucked it out of thin air.

My daughter was making quite a lot of mistakes in her homework early on. I did point out which ones were wrong and asked her if she understood what she was doing. If he is not willing to have another go, he will have to learn the consequences. It's early days, he has a lot to think about still being at a new school and it may well be he's conscious he has other subjects with homework, so for now I'd just point out he has gone wrong on certain ones. A year later my daughter has gone back to getting most things right again, so don't despair at the moment!

The tutor is aware they are still settling in and if he/she wants workings out in due course, they will ask.

No, I never got much guidance from the school as to what level of detail he should be showing - I just kind of used my own sense of what was needed. Though the school did give him general comments along the lines of "show your working". I did also explain to my DS how marking schemes for maths often work, as you get towards GCSE level. I explained how you could get the answer wrong, but still get some marks if the examiner could see how you'd got there.

I also found that his innate dislike of writing was a large part of the problem - his handwriting has always struggled, and actually writing out formulas etc did seem a huge chore t him. We've done a lot of work on his writing - trying to make it quicker, neater and easier for him and I think that's had some knock on effect in his maths.