Junior Maths Challenge

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Info/help/advice needed please.

My son goes to local grammar and is currently in group 3 out of 4 in maths (Year 8). He is competent in most areas, but struggles in others.

The school took part in the Junior Maths Challenge this year and out of the 240 children that took it, he got the 6th highest score and gained the gold award.

I had never heard of this before, so didn't take much notice until I had a few minutes to look it up on the internet.

I am very proud that he achieved this but concerned that he is possibly going down to the bottom group in maths next year as the others are so much better than him.

I dont actually care which group of maths he is in - if he learns better in the bottom group, then that works for me. However, does he have some latent talent which we are all missing? He has had a tutor on and off for the past few years, who always has said that he picks things up quickly, comes up with creative ways of problem solving, but often forgets equally as quickly the methods used, unless he practices it over and over again.

She says he is "very clever at maths" but he has had 4 different teachers over the past four years - none of which have picked this up! We are not a mathematical family, so I am at a total loss. Clearly the maths tuition at school is good, so is it just the style that does not suit him. Or can someone get a gold in the maths challenge, get the 6th highest score in the year, but not be particularly good at maths.

Sorry this is so long - just not sure whether to just be happy he did well, and leave his maths to his teachers, or try to do something about it!

It tests a very specific type of problem solving. If you look at other recent threads you'll see sometimes it matches a wider ability and sometimes not. Sometimes those same children can perform in exams and other times not. fwiw most schools only put a selected number of pupils in . If his entered 240 how many are on each of the 4 groups and how often do they adjust them? Maybe it is the teaching style which doesn't suit him . ds was in bottom set until Year 8, moved schools and has floated around the middle/lower middle since.

Thanks for your response Lizs. There are four groups in year 8 of 30 children in each and the same in year 7. In his year end exam he scored 80% in mental maths, 65% ish in non calculator and 30% in calculator. Giving an overall score of just under 50% and hence probably moving to the lowest group for maths for year 9. He never gets nervous in exams, so this possibly helped him I guess.

Sounds like you need to work out why he only got 30% in the calculator test. That is what has dragged him down a lot. I always tell my daughter that tests are to find your gaps to enable you to fix them.

Oh, and well done to him in doing so well in the challenge.

Although there are always plenty of voices saying that being good at maths won't necessarily get you far in the UKMT challenges, I don't think you could get a gold in the JMC whilst actually being bad at maths. But then, if your son's grammar school is anything like my children's schools, then even being in the bottom set does not mean you're bad at maths! Practically all the pupils there get A/A*, it's just that the route there is a bit different depending on your set. It sounds like your son is good at problem-solving, and dealing with questions that he can 'see' how to answer, but not so good at remembering formal methods. Hopefully a slightly slower pace (and possibly smaller class?) will help him with that :) And if he's ever worried, remind him about his gold :)

Agree that is a huge discrepancy . You need to identify what areas let your ds down ie. spatial/geometry, graphs/data handling etc and there fore need more attention and revision. Have they gone through the papers, what was his feedback . 30 in a class for maths does sound a lot at secondary though, will this change as they progress .

This scenario is not uncommon, to be honest. My DS scored best in school gold award 3 years running, but doesn't always do well in school maths exams. Bottom set in a grammar school wouldn't worry me. He probably has trouble remembering methods and needs more practice in the school type of exam. Plenty of time to fix that, especially if he is already being tutored.

If he is in a grammar then him being in bottom set there would put him in set 2 at the lowest of my comprehensive. He is most definitely not bad at maths if he is getting gold in the jmc. It may be that he just isn't doing the practice that he needs in order to remember the formal methods used in higher level maths but has a natural problem solving ability.

Do you know what level his summer exam gives him? I expect a level 7 to be top set in year 8, but in a grammar that may well put you into set 3 or 4 as they only take clever kids.

I used to tutor a girl at a very selective secondary, who was getting more and more demoralised about how badly she was doing at maths, bottom set, always low on exams, struggling with the pace, etc. It was so hard to convince her that since the average mark at her school was A (pretty much the only mark at her school, in just about everything was A), she was actually doing fine and would have been in a good position to go on to A-level. She wasn't struggling objectively at all, only within the context of this school, and indeed, she worked bloody hard to keep up with so many subjects. Occasionally performing poorly - or very poorly - in some of the school exams didn't mean that she was bad at maths at all. Perhaps it's the same for your son.

Thank you for your comments. They reinforce my thoughts up to a point, plus a few new ones to take on board! He is incredibly lazy which I find frustrating - and does not worry if he is in the bottom half of the class. But you are right - there is a discrepancy and I need to find out which bits are a problem so we can work on them.

His last report was a 6a and he has a 7b end of year target.

If he got 65% on the non-calc (if it's the optional SATs, then what, 40 out of 60?) and 80% on the mental ( 24 out of 30), then those are fairly standard scores for a student aiming for a level 7 to get on the 5-7 paper.

18 on the calc paper with those other scores is completely bizarre. The calc paper isn't that different to the non-calc paper, even if he forgot his calculator he should have done better than that.

He should have already looked through the paper at school and identified what went wrong. The teacher should certainly have highlighted it and discussed it with him. Did he massively run out of time and leave loads of pages blank? Was he feeling sick on the day? Panicked? There's no obvious issue with maths ability that could cause such a discrepancy. It needs more investigation and I certainly wouldn't accept a set change based on one paper out of three being inexplicably low. That doesn't indicate struggling, that indicates something weird going on with that paper.

They went through the paper NG - mostly factorising, bearings, Pythagorus - generally not silly mistakes - he just couldn't do them. He luckily doesn't really do nervous or panic (sometimes I wish he would as he would probably put a bit more effort in!)

I am happy with him moving down a set providing he gets a decent teacher who will go over things with him until he gets it. THe problem is, when he gets something he is amazingly quick at working out, and therefore get pushed to the higher group. He has been in top sets many times and then not kept up - he gets it, forgets it, has to be taught again and eventually it sticks in his head.

I agree with the person who said that the Maths challenges, whereas you need to be good at maths to do them, it also takes a certain type of thinking. Which I, although I have a maths degree from Oxbridge, haven't got. I also didn't find them particularly fun to do-I prefer the longer questions you get in later rounds.

There's also an element of luck (some at least is mulitple choice) and someone who is willing to take a risk may do better-or much worse, as you loose marks for wrong answers in some sections (something like 4 marks for right, -1 for getting it wrong)
My dd1 got a gold in the paper, but didn't qualify for the next round. Mathematically she is about equal to two others in her set, both of whom qualified. Basically her teacher said that dd1 only answered if she was totally sure it was correct-so all she had were right. Whereas the other two took a few risks and got over half right on those where they took the risk, which took their mark up over hers.

If he takes time for it to settle into remembering, he may be better in a lower group, as long as it's not then limiting what exams he takes etc. as they should take things slightly slower.