Maths teacher

[LKS]

My son is in the top set for maths, but I have come to realise since he's transferred to secondary school that what he actually likes is calculating. The more text involved in a question the more confused he becomes and often asks 'what do they want me to work out then' His latest homework is bizarre and has conjured up pictures of the Old witch that is the teacher using her class to source the best itinery for her christmas hols Of course this isn't true. So here is the question, plan a two week holiday to Paris Rome Madrid and Lisbon You will start from Heathrow. Journey starts 3rd dec. ends 17th dec. Your document should contain a list of days you will be in each city, plans of what you will do each day and the timings, journey time between each city, dep. and arrival times,the distances you have covered in km(oooh something to work out)My older son has said just type in what you want to do on a travel company website but this seems a very strange bit of homework. Oh yeah and it was given last night and is due in Wednesday

[Canopus]

Start him with the A Level. They have questions like "factorise this equation" so your son will probably find them easier than his homework assignments. You can find A Level textbooks in good libraries and bookshops.

 

Lower secondary school tries to make maths questions fit in with real world situations to the point where they are so tied up with wordy waffle that they become incomprehensible to all but the most expert wordsmiths. This is because traditional maths was deemed to be too boring and needed spicing up.

[Zemanski]

they may have been looking at using arrays of information, ie timetables, in class and a good way of checking that kids understand how they work is to get them to create their own - great alternative to sitting number crunching for most kids but unfortunately the point of the exercise is often not fully explained in a detailed enough way for our children to connect with the idea and this is particularly true with this sort of exercise which is obviously in an unfamiliar format.

 

using the internet should be fine as long as it's not copied direct but used for ideas - using real timetables to get the times for his own work is an great idea

 

if your son knows how to use tables and spreadsheets in word or office he could use those too.

 

hope that helps

 

Zemanski

Edited November 1, 2005 by Zemanski

[LKS]

Thanks both. Canopus we will look into A level books, I'm sure he would enjoy the challenge! Zemanski. Thanks for explaining I can see why the teacher might be using this sort of example for homework now, unfortunately my son can't. He has understood the 24 hour clock and timetables since year 3 so doesn't quite appreciate why they are going over it again. In primary school he seemed to enjoy maths so much more even though maths was not his teachers strongest subject, he felt that in secondary school he would be a lot more challenged so far this is yet to happen.

[Zemanski]

we have that problem too - Com is at least 4 years ahead in maths and they simply can't teach him in with his peers any more so he gets 1-1 once a week with work set at his level to do in his ordinary class. Unfortunately the teacher is cr*p but we're working on it.

 

we didn't think we were going to get them to cooperate on the maths so we have just got him a tutor for an hour a week - they play with maths at all sorts of levels and do a lot of silly stuff like timing different parachutes from the 3rd floor window and calculating their velocities or programming his graphing calculator with daft messages, Com loves it and has built a really strong relationship with his tutor already. Com laughs and hoots and bounces and flaps all over the place when J comes - even if they weren't doing the maths I think it's worth twice the price to see him so happy and excited.

 

In Y7 we were directed to the Nrich site to do problems instead of homework (he actually had an excellent teacher then who took a real interest and also set him up with a maths mentor - an A level student who loved working with Com even if it was just for 15 mins a week ) - this has loads of challenging problems involving quite high levels of Maths which I really enjoyed doing with Com. last year, though, his teacher wasn't interested in making any adjustments at all and other factors became huge issues so he couldn't cope with the extra work without the great feedback he was getting in Y7 but I'm thinking of going back to them as they are more about using the maths than number crunching.

 

http://www.nrich.maths.org.uk

 

look at the column on the left under 'this month' and choose the key stage according to your son's level

 

I would also check he understands all the basic GCSE concepts fairly well before looking at A level - you could get one of those revision workbooks just to make sure there aren't gaps in his knowledge before he moves on, if he misses stuff now he will find it will hold him back later.

 

good luck

 

Zemanski