sparx maths

[SomersetBrie]

I'm a parent of a Y10 who has recently started using sparx maths with school.
I am wondering what other parents/teachers think of it.
DS is good at maths but is struggling with the homework style in general and the difficulty in getting 100%.
I assumed it was a him problem (he has plenty of those!) but I came across some very negative comments online about sparx (mainly from students) and just wondered what others thought.
I thought it sounded great from the email we got from school, but getting more questions in your areas of difficulty and minimal help with these areas has been very frustrating for him.

@SomersetBrie wrote “My DS is a skilful mathematician but a little bit sloppy and is constantly having to repeat stuff and get it right rather than explore more difficult maths.
He told me that his teacher told them last year that you could get (I think) a 6 in GCSE maths without getting a question right. Not according to sparx!”

I’ve taught Maths for decades but not since Covid so could be out of date, and I don’t have any experience of sparx, but….

In GCSE and A level questions there are marks for method and marks for accuracy. His teacher probably meant that if you get all the method marks, but make arithmetical errors so your final answers are wrong, you can get grade 6 (or whatever grade he said.)

When I was your son’s age I made lots of numerical slips but I thought it didn’t matter because I understood the methods. I was wrong. Also, at A level sometimes things only work out if you have the correct result for an earlier part of the question - which is why that part might have said, “Show that….” and give you the answer.

If your son is making arithmetical errors and not showing his working, how can he be given marks?

Going by this thread, though, sparx does sound very frustrating for lots of reasons.

I knew someone would pick me up on "skilful" mathematician, he's not really, I regret those words, he just understands the methods but does not have great attention to detail.
I don't think he will go on to A Level as his accuracy has not picked up as much as it should have by his age. I've checked online, DS is currently on 81% for his homework this week - it will be a long slog to 100%.

I didn't say he doesn't show his working, he does fairly well in assessments, I just think that sparx seems to be overly focused on getting things right as you can't move on if you don't.
I would be very curious to know who it helps the most, do grade 8/9 kids get the challenge they need and do the middle graders get those extra skills needed to push them up a grade?
An online search led to lots of posts about kids self-harming because of it. No idea if those are real, but it did get me thinking.

We use Sparx at school

I have found that it's brilliant, now that I'm confident with the teacher side of things.

I have found that those who are happy with it can thrive on it. The questions are written in an exam style, so they are getting students used to that - particularly those doing the higher tier.

Sparx has changed the bookcheck system so that you can move on now if you don't get the bookcheck right which will remove some frustrations hopefully. As a teacher I can see how pupils are doing on bookwork checks but you can still complete the work.

I get an email each week to check the topics that are to be tested in the next hw so I'm careful to check what is coming up and that we've covered it.

I regularly alter the level of the questions that my students are doing. So if a parent tells me that a student is really struggling with the content, or it is causing distress and frustration at home, then I will manually change the working at level from an automatic level (which is what Sparx decides you should be at)

If a student has struggled with a question many times then I get a purple flag on on hand in page, so I would then help a student in my class with it.

I think the way to deal with Sparx is to do work at it in 3x 20min sections,and not to sit and do it all in one go. I believe that Sparx aim is 100% in everything but I'm looking at the time spent on the task too. So if someone took an hour to get 80% then I'm not going to complain about the last 20%.

Sometimes from the other side you don't know what is possible for the teachers to do with Sparx and I know that some of my colleagues don't alter levels. I'm old school and part time though and absolutely do not want to go back to setting worksheets and chasing those up that we used to do it. I'd rather spent my time making sure my planning was spot on and using lesson time more productively.

I think Maths teachers have to persuade schools to buy it, then they must justify it even though it is so obviously shit.

I am a maths teacher in a school using sparx maths.

There are lots of things I really like about it but I also understand why students don't like it.

The main issue mentioned above seems to be the requirement to get 100%. I think this is a massive strength. Previously students used to give up on hard questions on homework / give in something they new was wrong. However often the most important part of homework is the parts you can't do to start with. My students have 1 week to complete sparx and are expected not to leave it till the day before. This means they can get support from me in school (before school / break / lunch / afterschool) with any parts they need help on. [It doesn't have to be a teacher - anyone who is able to help is fine - parents / siblings / friends .....]

Another reason lots of able students don't like sparx is because they used to get away with doing homework in a fraction of the time as other students - not they have roughly the amount of time of homework, which seems fair. In honestly if they don't like doing prep in maths they are not going to get on very well with maths A-Level (in all but a few extreme cases.)

One feature of sparx which is really useful is that it gives you a report of the questions that have been incorrectly answered the most number of times and you can use to incorporate into your future lessons to cover any areas that people are struggling on.

A big reason why I like it as a teacher is that it takes away one significant task. Before Sparx setting / marking homework would take a few hours a week - now it takes far less time and I am able to spend that time on planning / teaching better lessons, more matched to my classes needs than I would otherwise be able to, whilst still knowing that the students are receiving a good mix of good quality questions roughly adjusted to their ability. As some of the repetition is done on Sparx we can also spend a bit more time in class looking at trickier / more interesting problems than we would otherwise be able to.

This week my bottom set Y9 class, the homework was 100% complete for every student - almost all of them spending around an hour on the homework - that was virtually unheard of before Sparx - both in terms of everyone doing it and the quantity each person in doing - that can only be good for their maths.

@dootball @MathsTeacherandLoveit

The bit that’s been putting my dd off is having the same questions over and over again in the mixed topic practice (as in week after week) when she’s already answered them quickly & correctly. I get that some element of repetition is valuable but we weekly get cries of ‘Not the swimming gala again!’ And ‘aargh it’s the photo frame one!’ And it’s boring. I can’t see her maths developing from it because she knows how to use her calculation skills in that specific problem because she’s done it so many times already.

Is that something the teacher is controlling? They’ve told me it’s all automatic, intuitive, AI and so clever knowing her levels etc…but that’s not what I see from it giving her question after question she can confidently answer.

This week my bottom set Y9 class, the homework was 100% complete for every student - almost all of them spending around an hour on the homework - that was virtually unheard of before Sparx - both in terms of everyone doing it and the quantity each person in doing - that can only be good for their maths.

That's amazing @dootball my bottom set year 9 are not doing that at all despite much bribery and cagoling. What's your secret strategy?

@Familiaritybreedscontemptso she needs to just do what my DS does and keep a record of the annoying ones so she can just answer without working it out. Work smarter not harder.

The numbers are different though @Hollyhead but context exactly the same so it becomes a very mindless exercise.

Here is a good example of a Maths teacher response.

Kids hate it and it is putting them off Maths.

Everything else is just peripheral noise.

Hegarty was great, meant I could help DS1 when he was doing his GCSEs.

DS2 had Sparx (sold by the school as Hegarty 2.0). I didn’t like it as much. Turns out neither did the school and they’ve binned it. DS2 is coming home with maths booklets to complete instead.

Apparently their reasoning was that most of the kids hated Sparx so it wasn’t helping.

I will investigate. There should be a bit of consolidation as you go along but to get the same question again and again that you are getting right is bonkers.

I encourage my students to screen shot and email me stuff they have an issue with and I forward it to sparx. The sparx help desk has been really good clearing up any stuff that I've forwarded.
Do you think your child's maths teacher would do that?

Thank you; I’m wondering how much oversight teachers actually get of which questions the students are answering vs just seeing completion rates etc. EG a friend’s child was having trouble with it, spending hours and hours but it turned out the teacher said they couldn’t see all the time being spent on it because it stops counting on a question after 15 minutes or something?

I can try with the teacher but I’m not convinced they’ll be super receptive. I get that as a teacher it must save a whole lot of time and serve a purpose. We’ll just keep on keeping on!

@Familiaritybreedscontemptso we can look at each question that each student gets after the work has been started. We can also see the wrong answers the student has given. Before it's set we can only see examples of the type that they will get.

Sparx do tell us that about the timings. I add on 15 mins on top of the time that Sparx shows me. If a pupils is spending well over an hour on it, then it does show up usually. As I've said earlier in the thread, if a parent tells me that their child is spending a huge amount of time on it then I reduce the difficulty level as it shouldn't be like that

Always good to hear that occasionally schools listen!!

I think all parents and kids should complain and complain and complain if they dislike Sparx.

I do not understand why teachers don't understand why the system is so awful.

I don't want my child to have the system set to be easier - I want them to be able to work through what they can and LEAVE what they can't or ATTEMPT and get feedback. That is also what kids want - they don't want to have to keep banging their heads against a brick wall, but the answer isn't to just make the brick wall a little bit lower and ask them to bang there instead.

The thing is that teachers can’t see the stress and upset it’s causing their pupils, all they see is a report of how many questions they got right and how many times they got the wrong ones wrong. Surely maths teachers out of all teachers must know that sometimes children just can’t get a question right no matter how many times it’s presented to them with different numbers so they have to start from scratch!

I was a bit worried but DD2 actually gets on with it - however she has a household of people who can explain maths and she is pretty solid with the basics and not careless.

She does keep notes of answers as she goes along says it helps. She does much more than the bare minimum as well.

I do find it a bit irritating when I get e-mails saying that she did do homework over weekend like she often does and has a few days left to complete it - as there usually been a good reason and she often just started it or about to. I also dislike idea it enough to rely on as she approaches mocks and exams - possibly a school issue - makes it hard to get her to settle to past paper questions.

I am disappointed that teachers are so reluctant to listen to the voices of their pupils and parents though. If people in such a people-focused profession don;t listen to the people affected, we are in real trouble.

There is a default to defend the product - presumably because those same teachers had to write a business case to the school to get the product bought, they've bought a rubbish product but are in denial.

Like bloody Horizon but just ruining arguably the most vital subject rather than leading to prosecution

My year 9 uses it. I used to be able to help him with his homework but I realised I couldn't any more. I assumed him struggling it was his lack of application / messing around in lessons so missing crucial concepts / laziness - and maybe it is all of those things. I hadn't considered that Sparx could also be part of the problem so this thread is enlightening.

All I knew was, he was struggling and I couldn't help him. I posted on a local forum asking if there were any local A level students who could spend an hour with him once a week going through the things he doesn't understand. I couldn't afford a tutor but don't think he needs that anyway.

So now Monday nights is 5.30-6.30 with the student doing his maths homework for Wednesday. I know I / we shouldn't have to find extra funds and lots of people aren't in a position to - but this is a (cheap) way of making sure he understands everything on there as he works through every question but with guidance from the tutor.

I suppose what would be nice would be instead of reducing the difficulty, if the homework could be accepted at 90% or some appropriate figure that showed the student could do most but was struggling with something.
It's good to be challenged but I'd personally feel a bit less likely to want to push myself if I am just aiming for perfect lessons rather than feeling achievement for almost completing a really tricky question.

But schools can accept homework done to 90% - it might not show as 'finished' on the system, but schools may well choose to say that is fine. Or they can have it so that pupils try a question twice, and then are told to seek help. There is usually a club or homework session set up so that they can go and seek help, or other schools just let them leave it undone, and then go over those topics in class.

These aren't things that are fatal flaws in sparx, but in the way that they are used.

I think compared to other similar online maths programs, it's pretty good. I liked Hegarty as well, although the variety of questions there was a problem as it many others - they were dozens of almost identical questions in each exercise. The teaching videos were better though. But Sparx does present the material in interesting questions at times, which is good.

I think it's difficult because people are comparing to an ideal situation - teachers giving individualised homework at differentiated levels, from a book or worksheet, marking it each night, motivating students, given good feedback about each question, adapting the classwork as a result etc - and that's just never going to happen. Almost all the schools around here use some kind of online system for maths, because there isn't money for photocopying or textbooks, and it's a lot of work for teachers to mark other work each week, let alone give the feedback and adapt the lesson, and organise enough revision of previous topics etc. So in comparison to what else might be on offer, Sparx is not too bad. There are issues with it, but often those can be solved by discussions with the school, as well as feedback to Sparx - for example, having to redo questions with wrong bookwork checks has been scrapped; bookwork codes are more systematic; etc.

I suppose what would be nice would be instead of reducing the difficulty, if the homework could be accepted at 90% or some appropriate figure that showed the student could do most but was struggling with something.

@SomersetBrie I believe Sparx is supposed to be such that students can get 100% therefore making it easier should help this, but I see what you mean. Maybe Sparx could have an override function so that class teachers can wipe a HW so that it doesn't keep appearing as unfinished on the students side? Any topics that a student can't do will keep appearing anyway.
Class teachers should help students who have a purple flag from a question that a student keeps getting wrong. Having said that I have one particular class that I often don't have time in a lesson to do this (nor would I dare take my eyes off them!)

I might well direct Sparx to the threads on here!

This is what we hate. For example this week he was able to do 95% no problem. However, he then has two questions neither of us could work out, as that’s with the video and also googling it to understand.
In the end to complete it we had to google the answer to complete it, otherwise he would get a detention for incomplete homework

DS has always loved maths. Used to happily spend hours teaching himself complex algebra. He loves a trip to Bletchley park and can explain how the enigma machine works.

Since his school started using Sparx he can't bear the subject any more. He finds it boring and says the homework is too repetitive and takes too long.