Maths for 11 year old, he's falling behind

[admylin]

My ds (nearly 11) has been at grammar school since September. He is falling behind in maths and I am starting to worry if he'll ever catch up.

At primary he got top marks right through, every test or homework was just full of ticks A's all the way. Now he's averaging D's in most tests and on his half term report card too. The other day he couldn't even do a simple division sum and seems to get confused even with his times tables. Any tips, I need a back to basics maths book for him but if it's too basic he won't do it.

I think your first port of call has got to be his maths teacher. I've always found ds's teachers to be really helpful with advice about what needs to be done when he's fallen behind. It could be a program he can download, a book or some extra tuition. In my ds's school, there are maths mentoring sessions at lunchtimes where sixth formers help out the younger ones one to one.

Good idea mumblechum, I'll try to get in touch with the teacher after the Easter holidays and ask him what he thinks. Ds does say that lots of the pupils are getting D's but that's not very reassuring!

The other thing to remember (my ds is at grammar too) is that his performance is marked against everyone in that year, some of whom will be extremely bright, so a child who was doing quite well at an ordinary primary will normally drop a grade or two when compared with 120 or so very clever kids. I only realised that quite recently when the Maths teacher reassured me that my ds's B/C average is equivalent to A average in a comp.

Do you get NC levels on his report card?

No NC levels as we're in Germany so it's a German grammar school. I am going to write a letter /email to ask his teacher some advice over the holidays. I'm tempted to get him to do some maths every day for the holidays but he's worked so hard and we're coming back to UK for the first time in ages so it will be hard to convince him.