Advice for parents teaching their children maths over the next few weeks.

I am a maths teacher with 15 years or so of experience. Most of what I do has been in the 11-16 age range, but I have taught younger children, and delivered some lessons to 17-18 year olds. I am Mathematics Mastery Specialist and PD Lead but there is a good chance that if you understand what that means then most of the rest of this post isn’t for you. 

This is intended for a general audience of parents who want to help support their children at home. 

If you just want some stuff to do with your child then skip to number 5 on the list.

There is a great glossary of education terminology here -  a great glossary of education terminology - so that when you are told to work on Key Stage 3 algebra you have a fighting chance of working out what that means. The National Curriculum is here if you want to look at it. I would advise against it.

At the moment I don’t know what will happen to current years 11 and 13 and their GCSE exams and A-levels. I have no more information than you do. If I had to guess I would guess that predicted grades would be used for university and college places and there would be an exam series in November for the qualification, but that is pure speculation.

0. YOU ARE NOT BAD AT MATHS

There is no such thing as a ‘maths person’, there are very few people that genuinely can’t learn maths (do you understand why 50 is bigger that 3? You aren’t one of them). No excuses. Maths can be learned and more than most subjects it rewards practice. Start with the basics.

1. Children learn from example

Don’t be afraid of learning with them. It’s OK for a child to know more than you about something. If you learned how to multiply numbers in a way that your child doesn’t understand then learn how to do it their way and teach them your way. Learning different ways to do things is positive. If you don’t understand something: think, talk then look it up.

2. Practice is important

Once you think you understand something, try it with harder numbers. Try it with decimal numbers. Practice. Make some similar questions up. Search google for answers.

3. You don’t need to become a maths teacher.

Your teachers will send through work for your children. Try to support them to complete the work. Youtube is a great source of explanations and tutorials. Find an educator that you like and follow them.

4. Mathematicians work it out with a pencil.

Just because work is set electronically doesn’t mean you have to do every step on the computer. Get blank (or squared) paper and work it out on there.

5. Resources

If you are looking for extra stuff:

5.1 If your child is 12 or younger you could do a lot worse than getting them to use https://www.prodigygame.com/ . It’s free (with paid for features that you don’t need). It’s basically pokemon but they have to do maths to fight.

5.2 If they are a bit older then https://www.senecalearning.com/ is really good, and also free. Choose their age group and join some courses. If they don’t know which exam board they are then (for now) just pick the one that sounds the coolest. We use Edexcel for maths GCSE. There are a few tiny differences in content, but it isn’t much. One topic might go into a bit more depth on one board than another. It isn’t worth stressing over.

5.3 I really like https://www.drfrostmaths.com/ but some pupils find it dry. It does go up to A-level content and has a small gamification element (you get badges for doing maths). It’s well thought out.

5.4 https://nrich.maths.org/ is great for puzzles and investigations and they often have solutions too. Some of the tasks will take more than an hour to complete but they are really good.
5.5 There is some great stuff on https://www.transum.org/ too.

I feel guilty  that I’m only recommending a few of the excellent free resources that I use all the time, and there isn’t much Maths Mastery stuff in this list but I’ve concentrated on easy-to-start and mathematically sound resources that I am happy for the children I teach to use independently of me. I hope you find it useful.