What does your child study at school that you’d like to learn more about? Share with the IET for your chance to win a £200 voucher

[LucyBMumsnet]

Many parents will recognise feeling out of their depth when it comes to helping their kids with science, technology, engineering and maths homework. In a recent poll of parents with children aged 5 to 13, a third of parents said the mere thought of having to help their children with anything related to these subjects left a third ‘feeling ill’. Half openly admitted they know less about science than their children - and the same goes for technology (44%), engineering (25%) and maths (38%).*

The IET is looking to inspire children and their parents to explore the wonderful world of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) this summer at their free online Engineering Open House Day (EOHD) live event on Friday 23rd July between 10am and 3pm.

They’ll be showcasing stories and experiments that illustrate why STEM is such a fascinating topic and providing inspiration for the next generation of astronauts, marine biologists, app creators and engineers. All the fun interactive activities, tutorials and experiments will then be available to dip back into throughout the summer holidays on their website.

Here’s what the IET have to say: “Engineering Open House Day aims to help children aged 5–13 year-olds and their parents understand what it’s like to work in STEM by giving exclusive behind the scenes access to a huge range of organisations to demonstrate the breadth of creative and innovative careers on offer. There’s discussions, games, demonstrations and competitions to keep your children entertained for 5 whole hours and more! So in that spirit - and in the hope of giving you some inspiration for conversations with your own DC - we’d love to hear what you’d like to learn more about in the wonderful world of STEM.“

What does your child learn about at school that you’d like to know more about? Are there things you wish you were taught or would like to refresh your memory on? Has the difference between proper and improper fractions escaped you, making maths homework a weekly challenge? Perhaps science was never your strong point but you’d like to understand how the technology we encounter every day really works?

If you need a bit of inspiration, have a look at the list of activities, talks and behind-the-scenes visits taking place for Engineering Open House Day here. There’s something for children (and adults) of all ages and interests, including the opportunity to design and create your own app with Apple and learning how to build and launch your very own rocket.

Everyone who comments on the thread below will be entered into a prize draw where one lucky MNer will win a £200 voucher for a store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

*Find out more about this research, click here

Things like engineering and computer programming. I'm also out of depth with some of the maths and actually the english. Its in part due to the fact DD is being taught differently to me. It would be great to have an overview of what they were doing and detailed info on the methodologies so I could help.

Maths! I really struggle to help my eldest with anything to do with maths.
I never enjoyed it when I was young and now the methods seem to of completely changed.

For me it's definitely grammar. I'm clueless when it comes to the names of different sentence types or words!

Coding - I have no idea what it is or how to do it, as I wasn’t taught it in school. My eldest does it and I wouldn’t know how to help

I’d like to learn more on coding. I love that they are learning these topics in school. I find YouTube is my friend when it comes to complex maths homework!

Grammar.

But what would ultimately help the most would be a text book (or electronic version) that the school uses. Or at least knowing what exam board they use so we can align with it (even some KS3 books are tailored to an examboard).

I think its insulting that the focus is just on STEM. That part doesn't bother me. English and MFL however....

Coding for me too! I’m not entirely sure what it even is!

I struggle full stop.
I didn’t learn Spanish at school so I find that very difficult to help with.
I was terrible at Physics, Chemistry and Maths so I just feel anxious when these subjects are involved.

there are lots of things... I was never taught grammar or long multiplication or division. Although to be honest I struggle with maths generally.

Definitely Geography! I'm ashamed to say that I really struggle with countries and capitals!

Maths seems to have changed a lot since I was at school. I'd assumed being a top grade student back in the day would mean I could easily help DD until GCSE. But no, I have to look everything up online.

I did maths right through to university but how they are taught to do it at school now is different to the way I learnt

Maths and science would be great to know more about, I find it hard to explain the homework to my kids because I’ve forgotten what I learnt when I was at school

I don't have a clue how modern maths works. I know how to do a sum (don't even start me on them calling it number sentence!) And get to the right answer. But the way they calculate the same thing now is baffling and seems more complicated to me.

I.T., we didn't have computers in schools in my day so have never had a single lesson. Today's education relies so much on technology and in the words of my DS I am such a noob!

I'd like to know about coding as I know nothing about it.

Rather than learning more about any one subject, I think it would be useful to receive a list of the subjects and breakdown of areas to be studied each year, so we as parents can go off and research/Google what they mean or entail.
I was shocked at the work my Y2 child was receiving, it is so much more advanced and complicated than when I was at school, there was terminology used in English that I only came across in secondary school (and had to do a sneaky Google to remember what they meant as I've never used the terminology since).

Chemistry and physics, the rest of my family understand these subjects well but I haven't got a clue!

I would like to know more about what they do in ICT in secondary school. Is it more than word and databases?

My daughters are adults but I have been mainly responsible for home schooling my 10 year granddaughter throughout lockdown and any isolation periods. I have no problem with any of the school subjects (because I'm clever!) but would like to know more about how they are approaching teaching sex education.

I was good at maths at school, but the terminology and specific things they do now sometimes seem utterly baffling. I'm sure I could do them if I understood what they were.... (Same is true in literacy with a bunch of grammatical terms I've never heard of).

I would also love to learn to code

I don’t know a lot of history
Kids aren’t at their stage yet but I don’t know anything about physics, although I’d like to.

I'd love to learn more about the new approach to maths teaching that takes place in modern schools as I personally studied in a different EU country and was taught different methods and approaches. I'd love to refresh my memory on History,too. Maths homework becomes a weekly challenge sometimes, because I was taught different calculation methods/solutions than my daughter. Science was never my strong point actually and I’d like to understand how the technology we encounter every day really works as well as deepen my overall understanding.

For me, it is new maths and the way they need to work out their answers. I am quite proficient in maths but only kniw the archaic ways of working out the answers.