Could your Year 3 child solve this maths question?

[Whatsyourcakevice]

Would your year 3 (7/8 year old) be able to do this maths question?

There’s a short list of items and prices eg sandwich £1.55, drink £1.30 etc

Then the question is along the lines of Bob goes into a shop with £10. He leaves with £4.25 change. Which two items does he buy?

It's a standard year 3 question. About half of my class could do it unaided, a third with modelling and a few wouldn't be able to access it.

Interestingly, disadvantaged demographics tends to be more successful at money questions. Probably because they still see money.

This. It would depend on the list of items that could make the answer either fairly easy or pretty hard.

Also taking away from £10 involves them
doing 10.00 and taking away decimals and getting the decimal points in the right places.

It would be different if it was everything is £1/£2 etc

DS8 in year 3 could do this but with some support. He's in a good state school. If you're paying for an independent school I would absolutely expect DC to be confident in this type of problem solving.

I think with some support around decimals my year 2 would be able to. But maths is his strong suit.
He'd understand the need to subtract first, but the decimal would unstick him slightly.

My daughter is quite good at maths (borderline greater depth) but she finds this sort of multi-step word sum quite hard, even now that she’s in Year 6. She often gets completely stuck on them. Practice is helpful.

Year 6?

I don’t think my y3 DS could do this without help.

FWIW these type of questions are in the y6 SATS (my y6 has just done his and this kind of thing was in the past papers). I think it’s quite hard for the average y3

As a primary teacher with over 30 years experience I’d say most year 3s would find this tricky. Ignore all the incredulous boasting posters with supposed genius children.

Have you got his books to see if he has done anything similar before?

It is a hard question for year 3 but that is because the curriculum and expectation has changed, everything gss moved down a notch. Talked your child through it, teachers are there to help support

My granddaughter is 7 years old and in year 2 and she definitely couldn’t work this sum out.

@nam3c4ang3 I would be amazed if that was a standard question in Y1. They will be looking at one step problems. Still looking at number bonds

My Y4 couldn’t do it and she’s apparently at the expected level in maths (at a private school if relevant, probably isn’t because the national curriculum is the national curriculum…). Even if the maths itself is simple the multiple steps make it quite tricky.

Two of my children got A level maths and am pretty certain they would have struggled aged 7-8 .

Mumsnet is a terrible place to ask for things like this.

ALL their kids were fluent readers in reception, and will make you feel like your kid is dumb as a brick for "only" knowing Cat/hat/hit type words by December of Reception..

They all can do Year 6 SATs maths papers in Year 3...
They can also write incredibly detailed stories, using correct spellings, punctuation and use a huge vocabulary in Year 1.

Their drawings, also are remarkably good and could draw a decent still life at 7.

Yes my year 2 (7 year old) can do these.

No they don't.

They might be doing stuff like " if an apple is 10p and a banana is 5p ,and a cherry is 20p. How much did Charlie spend on 1 apple and 1 banana".

But they wouldn't be doing the OP, it's more complicated than Year 1 maths.

Really?
I don't believe you.
Write the problem down, and have them solve it on their own and see if they can do it....

If bet your year 2 is doing things like apples are 10p, how many apples can I buy with 50p

Yep. It's absolute rubbish that the average school is 'covering money a lot in Y1 and Y2' as if most Y1/2s could do this - if it's a state school, they'll be covering the NC2014 objectives which aren't anything like this level. This is a typical end of paper question in Y3 assessments and at least 50% of children (and I work somewhere that got 100% of children to expected in Y6 maths last year) cannot do it. Just the comprehension of the multi-step element is beyond a lot of children.

DD would have worked it out by trial and error - she would try lots of combinations until she got the right one. With some shepherding she would follow how you might do it more efficiently, but I don't think it would occur to her on her own.

She would be fine with the concept of paying in cash and giving change, though, as she used to sit with me when I was working on till and lots of customers paid cash. This is the sort of question nice older people would ask her!

My son could, but my daughter couldn't. She still wouldn't have been able to in year 6. He's in top set in secondary, she's in second bottom. Maths is not her forte and she needs talking through multi step problems or she panics. Strangely, if I'd given her a tenner and sent her into the shop saying to buy 2 items of your choice and bring me x amount of change, she'd have done it every time at ages 7/8. Maths as a concept freaks her out, but not the actual arithmetic. It's odd.

Try giving yours a talk through about how it works and then go into a shop and do it together. I find applying it practically is helpful to children who struggle with mathematical concepts. I always found ways to learn through physical movement with kids who really struggled with maths concepts in my work school. It's a lot easier for many children. In school, I'd set up a mini shop counter for this to help those who didn't get the concept easily, but it's more fun going to an actual shop. Work it out together with a few figures, get them to do it on their own and let them keep the results. They'll 100% remember how it works after!

Mine are younger and could do it but I’m a maths tutor and also I make them pay at the shop and count their money. However both of them are well behind on their spelling 😭 can’t be good at everything can you!

A lot of my year 3 kids probably couldn’t do it independently as it requires multiple steps and different skills. Most year 3 kids could do each step one by one but couldn’t do it all together.

The trouble with money and change is that children have no idea what any of that is.

Those of us who remember pocket money, actual cash, and saving up for something or going to the shop and working out if you bought a comic how much you would have left over for sweets, can easily understand but for children who never handle money it's a really abstract concept, like time.

My ds could do that but he did the 7+ exams and were expected to work out problems like these. As the very bare minimum they were expected to know timetables till 12!
I really am not sure if it’s what the normal curriculum requires

This is a good point.

My DD would initially struggle with the sum, but would get there after settling into the steps. She gets very flustered by maths, but sails through anything reading/language/English based.

We make a point of giving her coins to take to the nearby sweet shop with her friend, so she can do a bit of real life maths every now and then!