DS yr 7 thinks he’s “ not good at maths”

[Guest55]

I have never been any good at Maths. It was rather a shock to me when I had a psychometric test done a few years back by an employer and it put me in the 'exceptionally able' category for numerical reasoning. Wondering who I can blame for the fact that O level maths grade C scrape was my biggest attainment.

I think that probably demonstrates that the maths teaching you 'suffered' was not great. If ideas had been explained and linked together then I'm pretty sure you would have enjoyed the subject more

[kenyancowgirl]

I loved Maths but wasn’t keen on the Statistics part of my degree - I had wanted to do Maths A level but due to a clash in the preset timetable, I couldn’t. I do think my Maths ability has faded, however, as I get older and I am losing my confidence in my ability as my kids get better!! However, adding time has always been a dark art to me!!

[Guest55]

I have found a great way of teaching adding time using a number line - it's brilliant

You mark a line in hours and then plot your start[or finish] time.depending on the question.

...........10:00 ....................... 11:00 ........................... 12:00 .......................... 13:00 .......

Seeing it visually really helps and you jump along in hours as appropriate and then deal with the minutes.

[kenyancowgirl]

I’m going to give this a try....my brain doesn’t work in 60s very well!!!

[RedPanda]

If Guest55 is picking me up for unwarranted posts then I've crossed a line.

Great - so in your apology you are rude to me as well - are you going for a full set?

I'm not sure if you are offended or making a point Guest55. In any event, please accept my apologies or know that I have noted the point you make. No more attempts at humor from here on in.

The following is what I can remember from some action research during my masters. Firstly, it is worth noting that psychological constructs get misused. I did so in my earlier post and then corrected myself (as a joke to Amber, which, thankfully she got). The closest construct I know of to 'run of the mill' academic confidence is self-efficacy. A sort of academic self-concept. I only mention it because this was what I measured during the study. I'll just refer to it as confidence.

So here was my problem. How do you boost confidence across a class? The established view at the time was that pupils increased or decreased their confidence by comparing themselves with their peers. These were the days of differentiation if that helps. Given a class will always have an academic order, how do you stop the higher performing pupils decrease their confidence when you increase the confidence (and as a result the achievement) of the lower ability pupils? Confidence and academic achievement are linked. I don't think I found any serious articles that challenged that view at the time.

The trick of course, was to fool the class into believing they were all doing well and avoid any comparisons across the class. What scuppers that approach is that maths (in particular) has regular summative tests which I think is the issue that the OP's son has.

So, given that OP's son will compare himself with his peers, the easiest way to boost his confidence is to achieve higher scores. More work/effort (particularly when revising for a test), no silver bullet.

[Guest55]

Sorry I disagree with all of that 'theory' - students don't compare themselves to each other if adults do not enable or encourage that. It's perfectly possible for students to work for themselves and not compete with others.

Was your post meant to infer we are all unable to understand because that's how it comes over?

[Amber]

Sorry I disagree with all of that 'theory' - students don't compare themselves to each other if adults do not enable or encourage that. It's perfectly possible for students to work for themselves and not compete with others.

yes, but...

My children would come home from school and say 'I got 11 out of 15 (say) on my maths test'. And I would say 'great, that's really good'. But it was so so hard not to ask, 'how did everyone else do?'. And I consider myself a really non-competitive parent. I imagine some parents really really care and get hung up about this stuff and then the children pick that up too. So comparison within a class is going to happen whatever the teacher does, I think. Unless of course you do away with summative testing of children. Which would be my preferred option.

[RedPanda]

Sorry I disagree with all of that 'theory' - students don't compare themselves to each other if adults do not enable or encourage that. It's perfectly possible for students to work for themselves and not compete with others.

All of it? That's fine with me by the way but you are up against quite a body of evidence.

Was your post meant to infer we are all unable to understand because that's how it comes over?

Certainly not. Perhaps I'm having a bad day at expressing myself. Given I had to do hours of reading around the subject that I expected very few others to have done, I was hoping it was readable by anyone.

[Amber]

It’s unusual for me to disagree with both G55 and KCG but personally I can’t see anything rude or offensive in what you’ve written RP and I think your points are valid, even if I disagree about trying to raise scores as a way of increasing confidence.

Let’s all be friends.

[Guest55]

You don't have to put scores on tests - it's not compulsory. It is all about the culture in a school and RedPanda there is plenty of evidence this approach works.