Summer Maths for 11 and 8 year old

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hermanmunster
Posts: 12817
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:51 am
Location: The Seaside

Re: Summer Maths for 11 and 8 year old

Post by hermanmunster »

Golly DG - we have never looked at a school maths book in this house! :oops:

My kids got into GS with presumably some familiarisation at the their schools then TBH it was up to the school! DS got A* at GCSE A in FSMQ and A is AS Maths so something must have clicked.

Having said that, I agree that work ethic is the most important thing and that was instilled in their prep school infant departments (bit late if left to Junior school I think!)
Daogroupie
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Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:01 pm
Location: Herts

Re: Summer Maths for 11 and 8 year old

Post by Daogroupie »

Well done to your DS. Are you waiting for A2 results on Thursday? I think the big difference in our experiences is that my dc's went to State School Junior and your DC's went to Private. As a result I am used to taking nothing for granted. I started in Primary school expecting the school to do it all, especially as they were Outstanding according to Ofsted. It worked fine with elder dd but younger dd was a Jan start and crashed and burned in Year 1 and was bottom of all bottom sets, nowhere further to fall. Others took their kids out and moved them to private schools. This was not an option for me so I mounted the big rescue mission. It took one term to get her to a 3 in English for Key Stage One in Year 2 but longer to rescue Maths as it involved me researching current teaching methods such as chunking and paritioning and Napiers grid. I got her into the top set at the end of Year 2 and top table a year later where she remained for the rest of Primary school. She was the only girl on top table beating all the other girls who got a 3 in Maths for Key Stage One. We have no intention of losing momentum and ending up back where she was just because of a bad Maths teacher. I will continue to test her on the key topics to make sure we are on track. DG
hermanmunster
Posts: 12817
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:51 am
Location: The Seaside

Re: Summer Maths for 11 and 8 year old

Post by hermanmunster »

Yes we are waiting for A2 - the maths is a given I think (didn't need much in the last paper to get an A) - the humanities are more hit and miss though :wink: fewer modules etc etc.

You may well be right about the private primaries - I took the decision to send the kids there as the head of the local state primary was "away with the fairies" when I went to visit. Probably lucky in the ones I found as there are plenty of not great private schools.
Turns out that the foundations laid there have probably saved me a lot of money and grief. The forms were very small (10-18) so difficult to set kids in any way. I suspect we were fortunate in that the annual fees were quite low (midlands) - reckon many people have easily spent more on private tutoring, books, courses after school care, breakfast clubs etc
RLB10
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2012 3:53 am

Re: Summer Maths for 11 and 8 year old

Post by RLB10 »

To be honest, it depends on your child. Some forget more during holidays than others. Your current plan would work well with kids who do forget a significant amount of information during holidays. You must take into account as well the happiness associated with having no work to do at all and having a choice over all your pursuits. You may feel that this amount of work is okay, but your kids may feel that they can never have a break from school for even a week because work is always being pushed at them, even in small amounts. You may be surprised, but some kids prefer doing 40 minutes of work once a week that 20 mins twice because they can get it over and done with in one go. Anyway, good luck whatever your plan turns out to be.
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Summer Maths for 11 and 8 year old

Post by mystery »

Interesting. I know exactly what you mean. But I would be on the fence as to whether or not it might be a good thing to do a little bit most days and let your child realise that the rest of the day can still be great. The rational side of me says why would it ruin the whole day doing a small amount of work and then enjoying the rest of the day. The other side of me says that my children would agree with you that it's much better to have as many days completely off as possible ..... but then there are lots of things they could persuade me about that would appear to be a good thing as they spin such convincing arguments, but that really are not very wise.

Guest 55 and Sassie's Dad -- yes I'm sure maths teaching nationally is not the completely grim picture painted there, and that there are many schools with excellent maths teaching. However, there is some pretty dismal maths teaching too - my children get it some years, depending on the teacher. Or sometimes it's a case that your child clicks with one teacher's maths teaching more than another - so some children in the class make great gains in maths, and others less so that year.

I like to do something at home about it in those years where it doesn't go so well at school. The toughest thing I've encountered as a parent is steeling myself to ignore some teachers and some parents who very firmly believe you should never do anything at home and give you all kinds of emotional arguments which make you feel bad about doing so - so you end up feeling bad either way - bad if you do something, bad if you don't because you feel you are letting your child down.
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Summer Maths for 11 and 8 year old

Post by mystery »

And Daogroupie - wow! There's some inspiration for parents about what you can do if things go wrong at school, and about having faith in your child's ability to do better rather than just accepting "bottom set" judgements and the dross work that can go along with that. Would welcome some tips on year 2 writing rescue mission - I'm great at rescuing maths and reading, but not writing!
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