| Well? I made reasonable progress in maths while at primary school; learned my tables, knew my measures; understood straightforward calculation. And, so far as I remember - and I am recalling an interval of fifty years - there was no homework. As a result, whether I got my sums right or wrong, there was instant feedback, provided I put my hand up.
Although I say there was no homework, there did come a point in what is now called Year Six when we had to prepare for the Eleven Plus. Realising that there ought to be a plan B, my parents agreed that I should also sit a separate entrance examination for the top independent boys' grammar school nearby. Some hope! Without warning I was plunged into nightly sessions by the fireside in which I worked out how many taps could be left running while half of the farmer's cattle ate a quarter of the grass and pondered over the compound interest he could expect to invest after he had sold what was left of the grass. The taps? If that was real life there would have been plenty of flooded kitchens while we eleven-year-olds struggled with the answers. I knew my tables and measures. Why oh why couldn't everyone be satisfied with that?
The point is, as Donald Rumsfeld recently ruminated, "There are things we know we know, and there are things we don't know we know. There are even things we know that we don't know ..." He went on like this for ages but I can be more succinct. All of us are clear about the themes in maths we are confident with, maybe even enjoy, and to what level we can cope with them. No problem.
We also have an innate idea about those skills which bog us down or trap us while we interminably stagger around in some fog, maybe bumping into a correct answer more by good fortune than through understanding. The country is full of children - and grown-up too - who regularly stagger around in this fog for part of the time. However, I won't overplay this mathematical weather metaphor! Like the real thing it is not a perpetual part of our lives but, once encountered, the repercussions can knock us for the proverbial six for a time.
Children usually expect their parents to know everything. "Sorry, darling, but I'm sure we weren't taught that when I was at school."
"But you're my mum. I bet Jason's mum knows. I bet he gets them all right tomorrow."
At this point you feel like sending your child over to Jason's for a spot of undercover subterfuge but you know that won't help matters. Meanwhile, you feel so inadequate, and inside, you blame the present education system for being too good, for having "got one over" on your family. Somehow you all feel caught out.
For both parents and children, this is a critical dilemma. It is not as if the problem will solve itself or can be left until a later occasion. As with all learning you have to seize the moment. Parents often find it difficult to search for solutions. You can make an appointment with the school head or class teacher, and this approach can be wonderfully liberating because - and maybe for the first time - you realise that a degree of inadequacy in being able to help your child with maths is actually quite common. The trouble is, many parents don't get as far as the school gates, except to pick up their child, because they lack the confidence to make the first approach.
Even informal school gate conferences (gossips or chats) with other parents can be intimidating. Do you really want to be known as the mum or dad for whom primary maths is beyond them ? It really can be frustrating not knowing who to turn to for help. Or do you just ignore the issue and tell your child to sink or swim with the rest of the class?
Children too can feel frustrated. If, in the classroom, they see children around them working happily, answering their teacher's questions, receiving praise and being moved on, maybe into a higher group, it is easy to feel neglected and lose confidence. One solution is to ask the teacher. She will be able to offer an alternative route to understanding. Teachers are brilliantly adept at latching on to the particular problem a child has and devising an individual solution on the spot. Their major headache is juggling the individual needs of as many as thirty-five children within the limits of a lesson, which, in the confines of the Numeracy Strategy (authorised version) permits so little time.
After struggling at school, the homework task might not resolve itself either, being based on no further teacher input and suffering from the inevitable forgetfulness the rest of the day imposes through multifarious alternative - and often more memorable - activities. So what does your child do when s/he arrives home?
"I've got to do this for maths homework. I can't do it and anyway I didn't understand in the lesson either. I put my hand up but my teacher was too busy and then we had to go to dinner."
Child meets parent and neither has a solution. If intractable difficulties like this only happen rarely then you cobble something together and get on with your family lives. But if a regular occurrence it is extremely important that a formal approach is made to the school so that, between you, you can conference your collective way to a solution. This may include re-assessing your child's skill level, changing the teaching group, giving access to teacher support in a small group, individualising the actual tasks given to your child to complete and the rewards given for each step of progress made. This will be your child's individual learning programme.
At the playground gate parents may discuss the possibilities of private tuition and offer the name of a recommended tutor they have engaged. By all means follow that route if you can afford it; but three points are important: first, you have to be able to afford it every week. Fees can be anything from £15 to £25 per hour per week, and as with all teaching consistency is important, so the cost is relentless. Second, your child must want to undertake this extra step, and you have to be able to find the time in a busy schedule to take, wait and collect; and fit it all in between football, drama and other activities. There is no doubt that children often find the fact that they have a personal tutor a badge of honour. If your child does not throw himself into the challenge wholeheartedly then it is a waste of time and money. Thirdly, it is crucial that you engage a tutor through personal recommendation. This is where the school gate is such a useful forum.
Given that personal tutoring can often be beyond the financial reach of many parents, especially if you have more than one child, what else is there? You would expect the internet to provide some easily-found solutions, but it doesn't. Certainly there are a number of excellent sites, but you do have to know where to look. Broadly they fall into three categories, the first of which are games-based, sometimes at varying levels. Great for relaxing with, but they all assume knowledge to begin with. CDs on the shelves of stores also come into this category. The dichotomy is that if you lack the understanding to begin with the games are irrelevant anyway, which only increases the sense of frustration - to be out of reach of animated and enjoyable games activities because, as one nine-year old revealed recently, the rest of the world doesn't seem to understand me.
In the second category are sites which offer courses. You undertake an on-line assessment, the system selects a course which you download in your time, lesson by lesson, over the succeeding few months, after which you complete a further assessment. Lessons are thorough and are accompanied by illustrations, sometimes animated, and maybe accompanied by a well-trained calmly spoken voice. The downside is the cost, which may be as much as £100, and your control is limited to your inputs at the assessment stage. Conquer Maths (www.conquermaths.com), originating in Australia but suitably adapted for UK use, requires no assessment and has a relaxed audio narrative to each of the lessons. However, it is for Key Stage 3 and above and a 12-month subscription for a single student will set you back £147, or up to £237 for a family. That's a lot of money. You may not want the learning as tightly structured for your child.
You may happen across a site or two which, although requiring a modest membership fee, provides a wide range of learning topics which can be accessed as and when required. A non-payment site called Cool Math (www.coolmath.com) has a range of attractively laid out pages about basic maths skills, as well as some handy background material. You have to put up with some rather distracting advertising, however, and the origins of the site are Australian so currency, terminology and details of the schools system is at variance with the UK. A free UK-specific site without advertising is the attractively laid-out Maths Is Fun (www.mathsisfun.com).
Many other sites are specifically for Key Stage 3, or GCSE, or teachers, such as www.mathsnet.net, the Guardian's www.learn.co.uk and, of course, the BBC's Bitesize at www.bbc.co.uk/schools/revision. A couple of sites originate in the USA
( and www.ricksmath.com ). Again, this can present a problem when dealing with measures and currency, and certain terminology. The Gomath site looks fine in parts but the presentation of its explanation and question screens is dry, and doesn't manage the presentation of fractions very well, for example.
Unfortunately until recently there has been no site which will provide a comprehensive and integrated exploration of maths at Key Stage 2 and allow users, both children and their parents, to interact with their discovery of maths.
Twelve months ago I attempted to address this issue. My aim was to create a site which families could use together, and which any individual member of the family could use on their own. I wanted to make it easy for children to tap into the knowledge-base at appropriate levels (there are four of them at present) and I considered it was important to offer, where practicable, more than one approach to the theme being explored. Parents and children can talk about everyday issues related to most of the themes, so laying new carpet might be presented as a talking point in area, and store loyalty points when discovering more about proportion.
The site has begun with about 400 maths themes which can be searched by theme and by level. There are also over a hundred mental maths question sets, competitions and challenges. Anyone not sure what the precise meaning of scalene or factor can find out in the glossary. Members can communicate with each other and the site's team via a message board. Parents also have their own area with its own forum; and adult users will discover articles and features on many different maths issues, from homework to the numeracy lesson. Unlike any of the other sites, it has just launched, and although it is already considerable in its reach and depth, will grow organically, responding to the needs of its members.
I suppose this is what aims to set Radar Maths (www.radarmaths.com) apart from all other sites: its breadth and inclusion. To become members there is an annual subscription, but this is a modest £16 for the family. Also, unlike most other sites, you can browse through a tour first so that you know exactly what's there. There is also a blog, Radar Day by Day (radarmaths.blogspot.com) to complement the main site.
Certainly, as computers with internet connections are now a central part in an increasing number of family homes, an internet-based solution to the "I don't understand my maths" problem should be seen as a wonderful opportunity. Parents will investigate what they and their children can gain from each site. However, it is a fact that a Key Stage 2 child will be de-limited from most sites, which concentrate their efforts on secondary levels. Unless the owners of sites allow advertising or have sponsors, what they provide is limited by what they can afford. Don't imagine that, just because it's on the net, everything is free; server costs alone can be quite high if traffic levels are also high - which they will be if the site is popular and regularly returned to. So you may end up needing to pay a subscription. It's just that getting involved in your child's maths learning need not, and should not, cost the earth.
So, after all, you may not need to send your son or daughter over to Jason's. Jason will be over at yours because your family have discovered a better way.
Mike Neighbour has spent a career teaching in a number of primary and secondary schools and has developed the website www.radarmaths.com. |
