Ensuring Maths at Home and School Add Up!
Concerned that England was lagging behind other countries in maths, back in 2014, the Government launched a more ambitious curriculum. Rather than this adding to the pressure on children to carry out more sums and rote learning, the curriculum now focuses on reasoning, problem solving and building connections between various mathematical concepts. Former teacher Brent Hughes, from Matific, outlines the new curriculum used in primary schools and explains to parents how they can help to develop their child’s maths skills at home, in-line with the curriculum standards.
Parents are incredibly valuable in supporting their child’s development, but it is important to ensure your input is aligned with the way they are being taught in school. Historically in maths we learned the individual skills of numbers, addition, subtraction, division, fractions and so on. Making your child sit at home doing sums over the weekend was certain to make them negative to mathematics. However, the good news is that the maths curriculum now lends itself to parents helping their children at home and making it a fun experience.
The latest curriculum is all about a child’s ‘maths mastery’ – a term that requires each child to fully understand a skill before moving on. Of course, this isn’t a new idea. For years teachers have been working to ensure a child completely understands a concept before taking their learning to the next stage. But what the new curriculum is demanding is not only a knowledge of the skill but a depth of understanding to appreciate its application.
Let me explain. A student may know the process required to add, subtract and divide numbers but if they are given the following problem will they know which mathematical skills to apply to solve it? “John, Sam and Emma love playing football in Sam’s garden and want to have a goal, so they don’t have to argue about whether the ball was in or out! At their local sports shop a set of goal posts costs £28 and the net is £15. Sam’s parents have said they’ll contribute £5 to this. It is agreed that they’ll each save up their pocket money and share the remaining cost. How much does each child need to save so they get their new goal?”
Today it’s all about children having the ability to make mathematical connections rather than only understanding individual maths skills. It is only when students gain a conceptual understanding of how various mathematical notions can be linked and used to solve problems, that they can apply their learning to real life situations.
It is this depth of understanding that the new curriculum is demanding.
It’s never been uncommon for a child to be able to recite their six times table but not know how much six sweets, priced at 10p each would cost. Using rote learning to work out individual mathematical skills can lead to a superficial understanding without any ability to apply the knowledge later. Another common scenario I used to hear was getting a student to talk me through the process they were following to add 234 to 377. They’d correctly start by adding the four and the seven together, conclude that this totalled 11 and explain, ‘I’m carrying the one over.’ When I ask them what they mean by ‘carrying the ‘one’ over they answer, ‘that’s just what you do’, without understanding that they are carrying one unit of 10 over. Without this understanding their learning will always be limited.
So, what can you do to help your child to thrive?
Develop a love of learning
Possibly the most important step is to ensure your child develops a ‘love’ of maths and this has to start with you leading by example. Avoid comments such as “I can’t do maths” or “I hated maths at school”. There is a widespread perception that maths is boring. The new curriculum actually lends itself to helping children to see the fun side of maths. Rather than having to sit over endless pages of sums they are faced with fun problems. Our Matific Galaxy app for home use is one example of this as it provides fun challenges, aligned to the national curriculum, for children who often don’t even realise they are even ‘doing maths’.
Always right
Maths mastery is about developing each child’s mathematical resilience, understanding, and perseverance. They will only start to love maths if they feel they are doing well. It’s therefore important to ensure your child never gets a question ‘wrong’ per se; they should simply be asked to consider another way of reaching the final goal and given ideas of how to get there. Try to work out why they didn’t get the answer you were expecting, rather than immediately dismissing it as wrong. I always remember one teacher asking a class for examples of a spiral. She was expecting answers such as a spring, spiral staircase or helter-skelter, so when one child suggested, “a car park”, the teacher told them they were wrong. Of-course the child had been considering the way you drive in a spiral pattern around a multi-story car park; their answer was actually correct! Comments such as ‘well done you’ve nearly got it; don’t forget to think about…’ are all positive and constructive comments that will help them learn to love maths.
Math is all around us
The current curriculum certainly makes it easier for parents to bring maths into everyday activities. If they need to be at their friend’s party at 2:00pm on Saturday, avoid telling them that you need to leave the house at 1:10pm. Instead ask them, ‘if the bus takes 20 minutes and we have a 15-minute walk at each end, what time do we need to leave home?’ Can they help you measure out the ingredients for the cake you are baking, count the pages of the report you have to write for work, or work out how many more steps you need to walk that day to reach your target?
Another example is to spend time with your mobile phone or camera taking photographs of clocks (ideally analogue clocks) at various times. For example, you could take a photograph of your child under a clock at the local swimming pool. Look at them later and ask questions such as, “what time did we go swimming yesterday?”
And finally, whatever the age of your child, the best way to help them is to work with their teacher to align your support at home with what they are doing in school. Would the teacher be interested in running a short session for parents one evening or send a note home to keep you updated on what they are focusing on in class. To get to a level of maths mastery your child will be starting off by learning each mathematical skill. If, for example they are currently learning fractions, try to bring this into their time with you at home. Can they cut the pie into quarters or thirds? If they want to buy a toy for £8 can they add up their money and work out how much this is as a fraction of their whole savings? By applying a problem-solving approach to their everyday life you can’t go wrong in helping your child to thrive.
For more information visit Matific Galaxy
