Algebra in year 5

[salsa]

Hi all,

Is algebra being covered in year 5? My son says they haven't taught it at school, but his teacher says they have now covered the whole curriculum for year 5. They are now consolidating until the end of the year.

My understanding is that if it is not covered in the curriculum it should not come up on the CEM or GL tests? Am I correct?


Many thanks,

Salsa

[quasimodo]

Hi all,

Is algebra being covered in year 5? My son says they haven't taught it at school, but his teacher says they have now covered the whole curriculum for year 5. They are now consolidating until the end of the year.

My understanding is that if it is not covered in the curriculum it should not come up on the CEM or GL tests? Am I correct?


Many thanks,

Salsa

It was my understanding and others will correct me if I am wrong that as far as the CEM 11 plus exams are concerned they will assume an understanding of maths up to level 6 which will include some algebra.This is a link to the level 6 content.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... s-of-study" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If there is more up to date information I am sure the experts on the forum will add to it and expand upon it in relation to the GL tests

[salsa]

Thank you Quasimodo,

Do you mean old NCT level 6 or year 6?

I can see from the link that algebra is just introduced in year 5 and 6.

Does anybody know if a school can decide to defer introduction until year 6?

Salsa

[nyr]

The new national curriculum seems to introduce algebra in Y6 but algebraic reasoning is introduced in earlier years. It does come up in the GL tests and having a good grasp of algebraic reasoning would be very useful for CEM NR.

nyr

[salsa]

The new national curriculum seems to introduce algebra in Y6 but algebraic reasoning is introduced in earlier years. It does come up in the GL tests and having a good grasp of algebraic reasoning would be very useful for CEM NR.

nyr

Many thanks for the information. The practise papers we have do include it, but I was wondering if this is because they cover the old curriculum or because the 11+ used to be done later on in the year.

I don't know how long we have to spend on algebra considering that the test will be at the beginning of year 6.

Salsa

[mumsdarling2]

It is quite surprising that year 5's have been taught algebra already! DS is in year 6 and his teacher's barely touched upon it this year. We went through it last year for his 11+ preparation anyway. Your DC might well get some questions involving simple equations or expressions in the 11+ exam. So no harm in being strong in basic algebra.

[salsa]

It is quite surprising that year 5's have been taught algebra already! DS is in year 6 and his teacher's barely touched upon it this year. We went through it last year for his 11+ preparation anyway. Your DC might well get some questions involving simple equations or expressions in the 11+ exam. So no harm in being strong in basic algebra.

Thank you mumsdarling2,

He says he hasn't been taught it yet, but his teacher says that the curriculum has been covered for year 5, anyway.

This brings me to the other question of whether the school can choose to cover it later on in year 6?

Salsa

[Guest55]

Soliving equations is not in the Primary curriculum - it is helpful if students learn the 'balance method' of solving.

[mumsdarling2]

I am not sure what the schools can choose to cover but we parents felt that they were preparing children based on the old SATs papers.

Balance method worked very well for DS. After a while he didn't need to do the balancing on paper. He was able to rearrange things in the equation mentally and skip a few steps in the written method.

[salsa]

Ok. Thank you Guest55.