Speaking to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Spinning Plates podcast recently, Countdown star Rachel Riley suggested that parents may be passing on their own negativity towards maths to their children. She went on to add that joking about being bad at maths promoted bad attitudes, and that people wouldn’t boast about not being able to read.
Indeed, parents do need to change their approach to maths and could even enlist their children to help teach them, in order to change negative attitudes to the subject. The National Numeracy Report has shown that negative attitudes towards maths are the root of the problem of what has been described as a national numeracy crisis.
These negative attitudes among adults are complex but have three main causes: a bad experience of school maths themselves, maths anxiety which leads to avoidance, and a lack of support for adults who believe it is too late to improve.
Parents must try not to pass this negativity on to their children. Rachel Riley is correct when she highlights saying: ‘I can’t do maths,’ as the worst thing you can say in front of your child. But how do you help them with maths across their time in school?
Parents can certainly change their attitude to maths by trying the following:
- Being positive about maths.
- Recognising the value of maths in everyday life and the benefits of good numeracy (including protection against unemployment, low wages and poor health).
- Having a ‘growth mindset’ - believing ability can be improved.
- Recognising that hard work pays off and that finding something challenging is part of learning.
There are many ways that parents can also support their children with their maths:
- Be positive about maths in front of your child. Never say: “I hated maths as school,” or: “I can’t do maths”. If your child is negative and says: “I can’t do this,” respond by saying “You can’t do it, YET.”
- Talk to your child about their maths. Discussion is a key part of the White Rose Scheme of Work and lessons which we follow here at The Downs Malvern from Year 1 to Year 6.
- Support your child with their maths learning. This could be testing them on their tables or checking they are practising them on an app such as TT Rockstars (all of our children have an account with this particular platform, which is widely used in schools).
What to do when they are struggling? Try the following:
- Ask them to explain their method - get them to teach it to you.
- Tell them: “It’s ok if you’re not sure, let’s work on this together.”
- Don’t just give them the answer.
- Ask them: “What have you done so far and what are you finding hard?” Try to help them work out where they have gone wrong.
- Rephrase the question, if needed, using something that appeals to them.
- Recognise when they have worked hard by praising effort. Say: “Well done, you’ve worked so hard.” Try to resist saying they are clever.
If they still cannot do it or cannot understand, speak to their teacher.
Find opportunities to point out maths and to include your child in everyday activities that involve maths. Examples could be:
- Counting – anything! Shells, building blocks, conkers, beads, etc. Count forwards and backwards as well as in groups of 5 and 10.
- Shapes – identifying polygons up to the 10-sided Decagon, identifying different triangles and quadrilaterals.
- Fractions – identifying simple fractions such as halves and quarters.
- Cooking - scaling up/down with recipes and quantities, using scales and measuring jugs.
- Time – telling the time from an analogue clock – to the hour, quarter past/to and half past.
- DIY - measuring lengths with a tape measure.
- Shopping at the supermarket - which deal is best? What vegetable or fruit is the most expensive by weight? Which is the cheapest brand for a product? Supermarkets love to show prices for the same product based on £/g or £/Kg.
- Money – Understand its importance and value - open a bank account, pay them for jobs around the house and then let them buy things they want. Discuss wages/bills, interest/tax and profit/loss with them.
- Cooking and money – most schools have cake sales. If your child is making some cakes for one, get them to work out the cost of the ingredients used, add in a cost for their time and work out a sensible selling price.
- Investment – children can be interested in companies and investment. Get them to invest some imaginary money in a company and then track the share price and how much money they have gained/lost over time.
At The Downs Malvern, all staff are aware of concerns about maths and ensure we support children by doing all of the things listed here as well as being positive, recognising everyone can improve, celebrating mistakes as opportunities to learn, recognising effort, discussing ideas, presenting ideas in a variety of different representations and using the CPA approach to teaching ideas (concrete objects, pictorial representations and abstract symbols).
Maths has always been vital, but with more and more jobs involving coding and AI, a grasp of the subject and the problem-solving skills it develops has never been more important.
Robin Cleaver, Head of Maths.