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Maths curriculum workings y4-6

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 3:33 pm
by Londondb
Hi, I’m doing additional Maths with my daughter to complement the work she is doing with her tutor. However there are some questions I am not sure how to answer because I did not cover the same material at school (did not go to school in the UK). We have the Bond books and answers but I would like to find out how to do the calculations according to what the children are taught at school. Does anybody know whether there are additional books that provide this information on the national curriculum? Thanks for any help

Re: Maths curriculum workings y4-6

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 5:05 pm
by AdamV
You could take a look at Corbett Maths: https://corbettmaths.com/contents/
They have videos which walk through every topic, showing worked answers. Then a sheet or so of questions plus provided answers. All FREE!

It's aimed at GCSE, but the way this was explained to us by a teacher was that everything they learn from KS2 onwards is fair game for a GCSE question.
So, that site won't tell you what curriculum you should be covering, but for a given topic (say, multiplying fractions, or area of a triangle) you should be able to find great help with it.

Re: Maths curriculum workings y4-6

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 5:46 pm
by Guest55
Please don't look at KS3 and above content. Your best reference is the Primary National curriculum which has guidance and notes.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... 220714.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Maths curriculum workings y4-6

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 7:27 pm
by Londondb
Great , thanks very much, I’ll take a look over the curriculum info as a start.

Re: Maths curriculum workings y4-6

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2018 11:51 am
by AdamV
You could also try something like the CGP KS2 Maths SATS revision books, standard and advanced levels, "available from all good booksellers". You might find these being used in some schools too.

Re: Maths curriculum workings y4-6

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 3:48 pm
by bridge
AdamV wrote:You could take a look at Corbett Maths: https://corbettmaths.com/contents/
They have videos which walk through every topic, showing worked answers. Then a sheet or so of questions plus provided answers. All FREE!

It's aimed at GCSE, but the way this was explained to us by a teacher was that everything they learn from KS2 onwards is fair game for a GCSE question.
So, that site won't tell you what curriculum you should be covering, but for a given topic (say, multiplying fractions, or area of a triangle) you should be able to find great help with it.
That's a very good website. Do you know one for English?

Re: Maths curriculum workings y4-6

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 4:43 pm
by Guest55
That is not the best maths one btw and has a couple of really bad 'ideas'. The more I have watched the more I worry ... this is not suitable for Primary and I would be cautious about all of the videos I watched.

Maybe post in English for recommendations?

Re: Maths curriculum workings y4-6

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 9:56 pm
by AdamV
So now I'm worried about Corbett maths site because this was the one recommended by the maths department at my son's school to help them with year 7 work. If it is not the best one, can you perhaps share ones which might be better either in general, or specifically ones that help with KS2 examples that the OP is looking for?
The national curriculum guide has a handful of examples in the appendix but does not include any of the more arcane grid methods for multiplication or other approaches I have seen taught in primary schools currently (in fact they show the methods we learned many years ago). It also does not cover examples for any geometry (eg perimeter, area) or fraction work for example.

Re: Maths curriculum workings y4-6

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 10:36 pm
by Guest55
AdamV - the traditional calculation methods are back in fashion unfortunately - not sure why you call grid method 'arcane' as it is brilliant at explaining factorising polynomials at A level, completing the square at GCSE and expanding double brackets. [Corbett maths advocates FOIL which does not explain anything]. I've seen many parents crying about why they had to 'suffer' the older methods and learning them by rote and never understanding - mental maths skills are now beginning to go backwards again.

If the school has suggested it then perhaps it fits with their teaching approach.

Re: Maths curriculum workings y4-6

Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 8:22 pm
by AdamV
My year 8 niece recently had some homework to do that she asked for my help with. One part of this was doing long multiplication (3 or 4 digit numbers, from memory) and her teacher had recommended using a grid which had diagonal lines across the squares, and allocating numbers to these then adding up them diagonally at the end.
She had no understanding of why this worked. It did not encourage her to get a proper understanding of place value, just "follow this formula and it will come out in the end". In this sense it was arcane, mysterious, secret. Like a conjuror's trick along the lines of "think of a number, now double it, then reverse the digits... etc... etc ... you are now thinking of the number 11!" (every time the same end result)

I could see that the diagonal lines were effectively the same as carrying "tens" across to the next column where there were added to the units of that column. Once this was explained she understood why the method worked, and was much more comfortable with it as it was no longer mysterious.

The problem for parents seems to be that different schools use different methods, some even offering additional options for some (such as my niece) which others don't use (if they seem secure with another method). And they seem to change far too often, so if you have more than one child you might have to learn and then re-learn all of this. We have had support from previous primary school with maths evenings for parents near the start of the year at a couple of stages (something like entry to year 1 and again at Yr 3 and 5). Teachers actually worked through the methods that they would be teaching to pupils that year. But many parents were not able to attend and get the benefit of this, and the "takeaways" were not much use on their own, unfortunately.

As an aside, I find that some of the traditional methods of doing arithmetic are easier to replicate in your head, keeping track of only a few numbers at a time in working memory - especially addition, and multiplication of a longish number by a smaller one. Anything involving a grid of results to be added together later almost always blows working memory limits really quickly.
But yes, I can see that expanding brackets and other algebraic problems like that might make sense with a grid to ensure all terms are correctly calculated and none missed.