What is your year 4 child doing in school maths?

[mystery]

Hi guest 55, no we are rarely told anything. If you ask you might be lucky to get a heading like "time", but that is the greatest level of detail one can receive!

[anotherworriedmum]

I'm feeling like the pace is slow at school. Can you give me some idea what your year 4 children are doing at school, and to your knowledge, if you have had a child do the Kent 11plus before now, whether this is going to get them the right sort of curriculum coverage by the end of year 5 or whether year 5 is going to become desperate "gap filling" at home.

Sorry we are making you feel worse and I am probably not going to help by saying this either I think there is gap filling to be done because I understood that the 11plus tested most of the year 6 curriculum too, even though they take the exam in Sept, so unless you have covered that then the test will be difficult. Sorry!

[mystery]

No, please say it. I need a kick up the proverbial to start gap filling so it does not become a lead weight in year 5. I'm just feeling a bit glum about it as year 3 maths went at a great pace and was well assimilated by DD so I thought in year 4 I'd just attend to doing a little literacy / VR related extra in year 4, and keep maths and NVR until year 5, but now I feel like my grand plan has been spoiled.

[Guest55]

Mystery - look at that 'blocks' link I posted - that is what your child should be doing if trying to secure knowledge at level 3. If higher than this they should be looking at the Y5 blocks.

[yoyo123]

also, never take what your child tells you they have been "doing" as the truth!!...

it is an interesting exercise to ask a class what they have been learning this week...despite the worthy "learning objective"
or "learning intention", children are still as vague about what they are doing as I was 45 years ago. Reassuringly a lot more goes in than you might think.

[mystery]

Ah thank you for the reassurance, but unfortunately it is cold comfort. I judge it by what I have seen in the exercise books at the last permitted viewing, and the homework that has come home, the things my DD has gone rusty on which she could do last year. This year's work has been very basic. DD was 4c during year 3 (from test), have just been given levels this Christmas (now year 4) and is still 4c (from teacher assessment I think) - my own instinct would be that if tested now she would get a lower mark than last year.

Teacher says they will be following year 4 national strategy units the remainder of the year.

Will look at the Year 5 blocks thank you Guest 55, and also pitch and expectations. Can't do it all after school I don't think.

Her writing has gone down a sublevel since year 3. Now year 4 Christmas writing (teacher assessment - but don't know from how many pieces of work) is now only two sublevels up from Easter of year 2 when DD was externally moderated as a 2a. I don't feel in reality her writing has improved much since then either. I don't understand how the methods they use would help her improve either.

I'm not going to worry about the writing as you don't have to write in the Kent 11plus ....... but with all this rubbish in year 4 exercise books I'm not sure how if it came to appeal in early year 6 she is likely to have anything which looks impressive in her exercise books.

DIY, I hear Scarlett say. Yes.

[SleepyHead]

Hi Mystery

I have pm'ed you
SH

[Guest55]

Mystery - also google 'securing level 4' and the 'What I can do in Maths level 4'.

There is an onteractive version of the 'overcoming barriers' resource that I've posted before we help you see the steps and gives suitable questions to ask.

http://12262.stem.org.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[scarlett]

I had something similar I found for Ds2 , with certain questions/examples for each level.

Mystery, I am going to say DIY. Just find a maths book and see what DD can do and then take it from there. If I can get my DS up 6 sub levels in a year ...then as a teacher , I think you will be fine with your DD ! As long as she knows the basics, then it's just practice isn't it . Maybe a few health days are in order

[Guest55]

You don;t need a book - everything you need is free on the above link