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?

I’m a teacher and that absolutely is not in the Y1/2 national curriculum. My Y3 daughter is decent at maths (not a genius though!) and she has confidently added items and worked out change for her homework this week but I think worded the way you show, she’d have needed a bit of support to talk through it, which would be normal.

Do your children never have Christmas fairs, or cake sales? Or go on school trips where they’d bring some spending money for the gift shop?
I find it odd that they literally never handle money.

I think COVID changed a lot. So many businesses/small traders/institutions etc started using non-cash systems, and it's stuck. My DC school is completely cash-free, even school sales and craft fairs etc.

My children did, yes. But today, even if it's an occasion, it's not everyday money, or weekly pocket money.

I’m a year 3 teacher…this is similar to what we are doing at this stage of the year. I would hope that all of my ‘expected and above’ children could easily do this.

I actually think this is the biggest issue with a cashless society. Children are just not growing up with these actual experiences & are missing out on developing these abilities.

My seven year old is in year two , working at greater depth in maths and he wouldn’t be able to do this.

Indeed.

I make a point of my 6yo handling money. She counts it, has to work out if she has enough for what she wants, works out how much change. Has to identify the coins needed from small change for that 50p toy from the car boot sale etc.

No he couldn't.

I've just looked up a 7+ maths paper form NLCS and the most similar question, still isn't as complicated the OP.
"The pet shop buys dog food in boxes. Each
box contains 20 tins of food.
A lorry delivers 4 boxes of dog food.
The pet shop already has 17 tins in the store
room.
How many tins of dog food does it now have
altogether?"

www.nlcs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/7-sample-maths-paper.pdf

There's a huge difference between a problem like OP and something like "if a orange juice costs £1, how much is two orange juices"

A year 1 could do the orange juice question,but doesn't mean they can do the OP question.

No, neither of mine could have done it at that age.
Too many steps for them.

First you have to work out how much was spent.
Then you have to add up combinations to work out something that fits the total, ideally using some logic and not just randomly pairing.

One at least would not have been able to do the subtraction reliably.

Haha my kid will enter Year 3 and there’s not chance he could do this in about a year’s time.

I don't think my year 2 seven year old could do this and he's apparently exceeding in maths.

Oh, snap 😆

Then reframe to the child that you have £10 in your bank account, then have £x left…

But honestly if you’re child is getting to year 3 with no real life experience of money - cash or bank account wise - you’re doing them a bigger disservice than their maths ability.

I think my 8 year old could figure it out as he's good at maths but they don't do maths like that yet in his school (1st grade). They do cover cash but so far it's just whole numbers and adding up or subtracting whole euros but not multistep like that and no decimals.

I agree with this. Primary maths specialist here! Most Year 3 children would be able to do the calculations needed but would need support to identify the steps. It’s quite a common type of question on the Y6 Sats and many y6 children would still need support with the problem-solving aspect!

That should say a few weeks ago.

As a teacher, I've seen much older kids flummoxed by this type of problem. It's the fact that there are a few steps and reasoning is required.

It's a long, long time ago but I'm pretty sure my whole class could have done it in their heads ... and working in £sd too, if anyone remembers that! That probably reflected more on the teaching than on our undoubted genius. 😆

I've been onto our maths scheme portal and checked 😆

It wouldn't be taught with decimals. £ and p are listed separately, separated with 'and' and children would count on/back, just as you would have counted cash in a shop.

This type of multi step problem would be greater depth and the question given is pretty much the final reasoning problem in the unit.

As I said, a lot of my Y3 class could do this as they live in a cash economy. Children at my previous (much more affluent) school found money trickier even though it's the perfect example of a base 10 system.

My just turned 7 yr2 son knew how to do it but didn't know 75+25 make 100 so couldn't do it in his head. He did understand the decimal though. I gave him 3 round figure ones and he knew them

... So he couldn't do it... 🙄

My year 2 could but she is really good at Maths.

@FlowerSticker he could do it, just not without pen and paper, i was just clarifying that he understood how to work out the answer even though in the year below