Are you able to teach your children maths GCSE?

[Fallinginlovewithmaths]

DD is in year 11 and doing foundation maths; she has a tutor but I am sitting down to practice with her/ do the tutor homework every day.

I mostly let her get on with it but I am realising I need to get more involved. The problem is I didn’t do GCSE and not even native English, didn’t grow up in the UK.

I am looking at conversions for instance. I learned this with a rule of 3; but the methodology they use here is different.

Are you able to support your child? I don’t want to confuse her 😬

How do I help her? She works well with the tutor but seems to get a bit stuck at home.

What is this rule if 3?

I could if I prepared. I’m a qualified secondary school teacher, though I have never taught maths. I’d need to put a fair bit of work into it, though, to make sure I was using approaches that were consistent with their school.

it would be pointless though; they listen to a stranger far more than they listen to their parents.

I paid for a tutor for my eldest.

I explained it above as best as I could

True. I don’t think many kids are able to work with parents.

I will just sit down with her for moral support. Look at videos, print her homework and answers, etc.

What I don't get it why it's called 'rule of 3'?

Is it 'if you know three you can work out the 4th'?

(I successfully taught / helped DD1 maths. I could have taught DD2 but she could apparently only sit down and concentrate with a tutor, not with Mum.)

I have read other threads where parents say they help their kids with GCSE revision so I was curios. The consensus here is that not many parents here do it though.

Personally I wouldn't try to teach a GCSE of any sort to my DC. I never fully understood home schooling unless you got A's in everything and even then I would have wanted to take it at A'Level so I was sure I had a deeper understanding of the subject in order to be confident. My DC took 10 GCSE's so in reality there was no way I personally could have taught them confidently.

With maths perhaps you can help with the topics they struggle with - algebra or fractions for example? Be careful though as often when parents try to show how they did it the teaching methods have changed. Sometimes this is a good thing and your DC might "get it" better with a new method, often though it ends in tears as the parent becomes more insistent and proud they remembered how to, while the kid is wailing they don't understand and it isn't what they learnt at school.

If you can find a tutor in your area, that would be ideal. See if anyone you know can recommend one and book in a couple of sessions to start, just to make sure your child gets on with them. Pick out a topic or two for them to focus on in advance I would say.

Teaching maths isn't really the same as 'helping with revision' though.

eg You can help revise maths by running formulae, marking papers to mark scheme etc. But teaching the methods is a different thing.

Also it is possibly easier to help with revision for more fact based subjects such as science, history, Eng lit etc than for skills based such as Maths, Eng Lang, or MFLs.

Search in google rule of three maths.

Thanks.

We do have a tutor and she works well with them; but seems to get a bit stuck doing the homework. She is improving though and watching videos, etc.

Makes sense. Thank you. Glad I don’t have to learn the subject/methods; some people have suggested this in other threads.

I'm a qualified teacher, but I don't think that, plus qualifications in Maths and some preparation time would be enough for me to be able to teach/tutor it.

I found Maths straightforward at school. I could demonstrate a method and examples. But I think that experienced Maths teachers have an understanding of the misconceptions that pupils can have and how to work round them. I'd probably end up say "but what don't you get about it?" in exasperation.

I really think that teaching Maths is something else. Which made it very concerning when our local secondary school didn't have any specialist Maths teachers.

As others have said, to teach maths, you have to be understanding of how people struggle with it, which means that geniuses are sometimes hopeless maths teachers.

(The same is sometimes said about therapists: most of them are mid range mental health wise, as if they had never had any problems of their own, they would not be very good at helping others.)

Not many do it for maths. I would easily be able to help with English, Sciences, History or French. Just not maths..

This has been a really interesting read. I could teach DD GCSE maths (though circle theorums are also my nemesis); I've got a science PhD, but also DD is good at maths. So if she asks 'how would you do this' and I show her 'my' way, firstly, she'll nearly always get it, and secondly, if she's been taught another method, then we'll discuss them, why they both work, and she'll be able to use either/both without getting confused. That is very different to teaching a child who struggles - I'd need to do a lot more prep to do that (not least learning the methods currently being taught).

DD school only has 2 good maths teachers in her year which are teaching higher.

They changed the Head of Maths this year; but not sure the school can turn things around in one year with just one hour intervention per week.

I think it would be better for DD to use the school maths hours to do self study or more tutoring. She is not getting anything out of her current teacher.

Even more of a reason to do what you have done and get her a tutor. Hopefully you've chosen an experienced Maths teacher as her tutor.

My guess on meaning was right.

Things like that are only helpful i think if you understand why it works rather than just doing the method.

A bit like shortcuts for percentages, eg divide by 4 for 25%, otherwise it is just more random facts to learn.

yes, tutor is quite experienced and DD is improving. I just think there is still quite a bit to cover so may remove my daughter out of her current maths lessons, 2 days per week which she starts first thing in the morning so she does some online practice with tutor. She has quite long days and is quite tired by the end of the day.

Exactly. Maths is more about ways of thinking than specific methods/routines. My 10 year old DD never knows ‘rule of three’ but she understands the logic and can solve these proportion problems easily.

Im not sure about being able to teach maths GCSE, but I do feel pretty confident in supporting it. Im not an intuitive mathematician but i did well at GCSE by putting in a lot of practice. It was harder in some ways back then because there was no internet & no videos but my letts revision guide was in a battered state by the time the GCSE exam rolled round.
DD is fiercly independent and resists help (beyond can you print out .... for me). However, on the couple of occasions i have been allowed to help we watch the maths genie video together & then work on a few questions. That way it refreshes my memory if i've forgotten the method (or never done it) and we are both doing it the same way. She loves it i get something wrong - it sort of breaks the ice. Once we've done a few & got the hang if things she can carry on alone. As of yet there is nothing we havent been able to sort out together, but we have only just started year 10. This doesn't mean it is always reproduced in tests. You forget stuff, dont recognise where to apply it and careless errors are DD's speciality.
She mainly uses maths genie, PMT or first class maths (all free). There is no tips & tricks type stuff there - or she hasnt come across it. Just loads of worked examples. If you dont understand shortcuts I think they do more harm than good. Im particularly wary of all that '10 calculator tricks to improve your GCSE grade' stuff. Sadly (for people who dont enjoy maths like DD) I think once you've engaged with explabations (be it teaching, tutoring or videos) improvement is mainly driven by how long you are willing to practice for.

yes

ex maths teacher.

so if you know that two things are related in a proportional relationship then given that relationship and three numbers you can find the fourth.

in the uk it is taught as direct proportion and indirect or inverse proportion.

other countries use direct rule of three or indirect rule of three.

neither description is particularly accurate. Technically they are in a multiplicative relationship.

This morning, I had my 10-year-old daughter (Year 6) do a home mock of the AQA GCSE Higher Tier Nov 2024 Paper 1 (non-calculator). She scored 45/80 (an estimated Grade 6), despite leaving several questions completely blank on topics she hasn't studied yet.

She isn't a maths prodigy, and we've never hired tutors—I simply coach her myself. From an early age, I introduced her to fun maths videos and logic puzzles, encouraging self-directed learning along the way.

I'm a big fan of Jo Boaler's philosophy: maths education shouldn't be about rote memorisation or test prep, but about helping every child build genuine mathematical thinking habits. If you want a good GCSE score, you need less repetitive drilling and more advanced thinking. Maths is genuine fun for my DD. I keep telling her she is good at it and that maths is supposed to be enjoyable, and it truly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

@Breeze67 Well that is all well and good, well done your DD. I too tried telling my DD maths was fun, she could do it, encourage mathematical thinking, puzzles etc etc.

Surprise surprise, it turns out having dyspraxia, dyslexia, & slow processing makes maths somewhat harder and not at all fun.

Well done to you and your daughter 🙌👏

I don’t think this work for everyone though; not everyone’s brain is wired the same.

I am good at languages my husband isn’t.He is good at Directions; I have no sense of Direction. It doesn’t mean we can’t learn or improve; it means it will take us more effort.

Some people are great at science; some are better at English, etc.