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Sooze2

Here's a year 5 maths question for you

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"How many minutes from ten minutes to ten to quarter past ten?"

 

I know what me and DH think about it but what do you think.

 

The only thing I will say at the moment is what hope is there! I have written a comment next to the question and I am wondering if I am out of order.

 

The whole class get a sheet of 30 questions like this every week and us parents spend a very very long time explaining them to our children (all the parents are talking about it) apparently they are not doing maths like this is class so we have to teach them how to do it at home.

 

Mwah x

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Well it seems like a useful practical kind of maths skill to learn but I don't know enough about maths or the primary curriculum to say whether it's appropriate or not for year 5. If all the children are struggling it sounds as though there is a problm somewhere.

 

Hopefully some teachers will be along to comment.

 

K x

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Its the wording that we thought was the problem to be honest. Instead of "How many minutes from ten minutes to ten to quarter past ten?" shouldn't it say

"How many minutes from ten minutes to ten untill quarter past ten?". Am I being padantic and old fashioned? I am begining to wonder if I should get the tippex out and also have decided never to write anything I am unsure of in biro :unsure: oops!

 

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Of course - as an English teacher I should have focused on the wording rather than the maths! :rolleyes:

 

You have a point - "until" is much clearer than "to" in this context, especially for children who are not confident with word problems of this kind.

 

K x

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Until I scrolled through the replies I wasn't aware of the issue being raised as this fits with the Primary Framework and is a useful life-skill (if it's ten to ten now and my train is at quarter past ten do I have enough time to walk to the station?)

 

I can now see both sides of the argument.

 

Until is clearer and will potentially cause less confusion in this particular context, however, 'to' is consistent with other contexts and may help pupils transfer their skills, for instance, how far is it from John's house to Peter's house?

 

For what it's worth, I do believe that it is important to teach cross curricular and not to say 'this is a maths lesson, therefore grammar is not important', however it needs to be remembered that the focus is the maths and not to detract from this.

 

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Thankyou Kathryn, I seem to doubt everything I think these days! All my confidence has flown away which could be why I keep posting here.

 

x

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I'm a stickler for punctuation (a much neglected area in the curriculum nowadays, in my opinion :crying: ) and I think the whole thing could be resolved by the simple insertion of a comma thus:

 

how many minutes from ten to ten, to a quarter past ten?

 

Instantly clearer whether you use "to" or "until". :)

 

K x

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For what it's worth, I do believe that it is important to teach cross curricular and not to say 'this is a maths lesson, therefore grammar is not important', however it needs to be remembered that the focus is the maths and not to detract from this.

 

Mumble it's worth a lot because maths was my weakest subject at school to say the least and I need the feed back. I was 10 30 years ago so things like this are a very distant confused memory.

 

The thing is that none of the children understand the questions because they are not doing it in class, at the moment they are doing 2 D shapes and then 3 D shapes which they did in year 2! Wouldn't they be better off teaching them this stuff (or other things they don't already know) rather than letting us parents stuble through it for hours? The teacher said they have to get at least 20 out of thirty correct to pass these weekly tests that they send home but the parents are having to go through every step to the point where we are practically giving them the answers. It seems pointless - the whole class look like they are maths geniusess and must all be in the top set by now and we parents look forward to getting the results each weeks to see if we passed! :lol:

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As a matter of interest - how do people work this out? I had to visualise a clock face and count round it in fives. I can't do it as a straight mathematical sum.

 

K x

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I just added 15 (quarter past) and 10 minutes together. Well I mean my son did - honest!

 

I get him to show his workings so they can at least see that I am trying to explain how to do the sums. I did have to do a google search to find out what the PRODUCT OFF meant though which is terrible I know!

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i have to admit i had to read that question about 3 times before i was able to understand what was being asked.......then still didn't really get it untill I read the suggested wording.................but then maybe I am just thick!

 

 

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The thing is that none of the children understand the questions because they are not doing it in class, at the moment they are doing 2 D shapes and then 3 D shapes which they did in year 2! Wouldn't they be better off teaching them this stuff (or other things they don't already know) rather than letting us parents stuble through it for hours? The teacher said they have to get at least 20 out of thirty correct to pass these weekly tests that they send home but the parents are having to go through every step to the point where we are practically giving them the answers. It seems pointless - the whole class look like they are maths geniusess and must all be in the top set by now and we parents look forward to getting the results each weeks to see if we passed! :lol:

Oh how many times have I heard similar tales... :angry:

 

I can answer a few issues, but parent-work is just silly, causes unnecessary stress at home and puts everyone off schoolwork. I would much rather, if something must be set, that a task be given requiring children and parents to interact perhaps on a craft task or just to go for a walk and discuss what they observe. Anyway, it far too late/early for me to be getting all stroppy about this. :lol: Maybe the fact that it's 2:00AM and I'm still doing my homework doesn't help my opinion... Although that's much more to do with planning my time. :(

 

They should be doing homework do consolidate class-skills so it would be worth questioning why it is a different topic. The reason they are re-doing 2D and 3D shapes is because the curriculum is set up in a spiral manner so they re-visit concepts each year building on previous learning and incorporating their knowledge into everything else they have learnt. Well at least that's the theory, but unfortunately, many teachers don't have the confidence/knowledge/skills to do this and topics are taught discretely and often just a repeat of what has gone before.

 

As a matter of interest - how do people work this out?

 

I just added 15 (quarter past) and 10 minutes together.

Ditto. :)

 

Here's a little puzzle for any insomniacs who are still awake:

 

Turn l 0 l 0 l 0 into 9:50 using only one straight line. Enjoy. :)

 

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Oh, very clever, Mumble :lol: - I get it - but only because of the previous discussion I have to say. :thumbs::notworthy:

:clap: :clap: :clap: Yes, that did rather give it away, didn't it? :rolleyes:

 

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"How many minutes from ten minutes to ten to quarter past ten?"

 

I know what me and DH think about it but what do you think.

 

The only thing I will say at the moment is what hope is there! I have written a comment next to the question and I am wondering if I am out of order.

 

The whole class get a sheet of 30 questions like this every week and us parents spend a very very long time explaining them to our children (all the parents are talking about it) apparently they are not doing maths like this is class so we have to teach them how to do it at home.

 

Mwah x

 

As a dyslexic student that would wind me up no end to attempt to work it out. i can work it out now but im 30! If they used pictorial symbols with the questions instead of just the words as least they would have a chance. Sounds like national tests gone too far which is why a relative of mine resigned her commission. The national curriculum came into force with the government telling the teachers how to teach! i do wonder how many of them used to be teachers?

 

Alexis

 

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Thankyou Kathryn, I seem to doubt everything I think these days! All my confidence has flown away which could be why I keep posting here.

 

x

 

Anything in particular we can help you with? ive also got a confidence issue at the moment due to this annoying pain related depression!

 

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I agree that the wording is very confusing. I had to dissect the sentence into its relevant parts to get the question. For any child with language difficulties this would probably be impossible. Much better to show two pictures of clocks and ask 'how many minutes from picture A to picture B'.

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I have to say, as I read down the posts here, every time I thought of a point to make, Mumble made it first! :lol:

 

I think I can answer the question about why they're being given this type of work-It looks like the sort of question they will be asked in the 'oral maths' part of the SATs test. When you read it out loud, you can use your inflection to make it make sense.... Unfortunately, many teachers think the way to learn how to do these types of questions is simply to do lots, under lots of pressure. :wallbash:

 

By the way, I was under the impression that we don't have a 'pass/fail' culture in our education system, and that 'Every Child Matters'. How much do you feel you matter when you 'fail' your maths homework every week? I would certainly be challenging that one!!!! :angry::angry::angry:

And what are the consequences of 'failure'? Does the teacher actually have to start teaching you something? Or do you just get told you've failed, and made to feel bad? :(

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If they fail they go into timeout. None of them fail because we parents help them, my freind told me today that she sat down on Satuday and did 12 of the questions herself without her daughter which I thought was a bit extreme but I can see her point.

 

If they get 5 or less spellings right they go into timeout. After the first spelling test of the term nearly all of the children went to time out and a lot of the parents were all set for a mutiny. I asked DS how many he got right, he got 2 out of 10 and went to time out but we didn't learn the spellings due to being too busy doing maths so I just laughed and said perhaps we should learn them next time. They also have to write a sentence about each word in class, that week they had 15 minutes to do the sentences, DS would have taken 15 minutes to write 1 sentence if they were lucky. None of the children did all the sentences so that is the other reason they were in time out. Aparently the teacher has now decided to give them more time.

 

She is a newly qualified teacher so still learning I guess.

Edited by Sooze2

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