Author: Mr Roundtree

Tremendous times tables

You may have read recently about government plans to introduce a times tables assessment for children in Year 4 – the ‘check’ will be compulsory in 2020. The cost of this new test is estimated to exceed £5.2million. Whether you think the new test to be necessary or useful, it goes without saying that children knowing their times tables can really help not only in Maths lessons but in everyday life.

We’ve been carrying out our own assessment of our pupils’ times tables recall for some time now, in the form of a short test of 25 questions each term. Pupils have recently done the Spring test – with great results!

Year 2

We only tested x2, x5 and x10, in-line with national age-related expectations for children in Year 2. The average score was 20.4 and 80% of children got 20 or more of the questions correctly.

Year 4

By the end of Year 4, children are expected to be able to recall all multiplication and division facts up to 12 x 12 and our test checked 25 random facts.

Children scored an average of 21.9 out of 25 with 77% of children getting 20+ questions correct. Last year, the same children scored  only 16.2 as a class average, with only 13% reaching 20 or more. We’ve still got one more term to improve further.

Year 5:

Our Year 5 children scored an average of 23.4 out of 25 and 93% got 20+ questions correct. This is a significant improvement on their performance in a similar test at the end of Year 4, when the average score was 21.0 and only 69% had a score of 20 or more.

Year 6:

As you might expect, our Year 6 children did even better. The average score in the recent test was 24.5 out of 25 and 100% of children scored 20 or more in the test – a really impressive result.

We’ll need to work harder to ensure our Year 4 children in 2020 are fully prepared for the times table assessment that is planned. However, it’s reassuring to know that our children in Year 5 and Year 6 keep improving their performance (possibly raising the question why not assess the tables facts in a later year group). All our Year 6 children leave primary school with a thorough grasp of their times table facts.

This spreadsheet can help your child test themselves – but before they do, practise together:

  • count in things that link, like 2p coins for x2 and 5p coins for x5, and 4 wheels on a car so 4 wheels (1 car), 8 wheels (2 cars), 12 wheels (three cars) etc
  • count forwards, backwards in 3s, 4s or whatever
  • look for patterns in the times tables (like the digits all add up to 9 when you multiply by 9)

University Student Visit

We had a visit from a student from Leeds University today. He was studying Biomedical Sciences and taught us all sorts about what keeps us alive and what keeps us healthy.

We took on the role of aliens (hence our headgear) and pretended we were studying this strange species from another planet: humans.

We investigated how much we breathe every minute and learnt about what breathing actually is and why we need to do it.

Our diaphragm moves up and down as we breathe in and out and Mr Cook gave us these mini models so that we could see what was happening inside us. We created our own body system with half of us being oxygenated blood travelling to our organs and the other half carrying the deoxygenated blood back to the heart and the lungs. The deoxygenated team were much more efficient that the oxygenated team – particularly Dan and Matthew.

Measuring

This week in maths, we’re learning all about measuring. Yesterday, we had fun finding out if we were taller or shorter than some of our friends. We stood back-to-back with another person, making sure that we stood up straight. Then, we asked one of our friends to measure us. By the end of the lesson, we found out that Inam was taller than everyone in the whole class (apart from Mr Parker, of course).

Today, we compared the length of objects we use everyday in the classroom.

Helping with homework…?

You might have heard about this news story this: UK parents help less with homework.

Parents in the UK are much less likely to spend more than an hour per day helping with their children’s homework compared with parents in other countries, a survey suggests.

A survey of 27,830 parents in 29 countries found only 11% of UK parents spent an hour per day helping their children, far behind 62% in India.

Our Homework Policy is designed to best meet the needs of our pupils and their parents / carers. To help, we refer to research on how effective homework is.

Our Talk Time homework is intended to promote good speaking and listening skills, and quite often to raise awareness of moral issues such as whether or not animals should be kept in captivity. To get the most from Talk Time homework, turn the telly off and have a conversation around the table whilst eating your evening meal – you don’t need to spend extra, separate time to support your child! Encourage your child to use ambitious words, useful phrases and full sentences. Some sentence structures that can work well are:

  • What are your views on …?
  • I hear what you’re saying. However, …
  • That’s a good point, but …
  • Furthemore, …
  • In conclusion, …
  • I believe that … because…
  • Another reason is …

Creative homework is an opportunity for your child to choose whatever they want to demonstrate some learning. For example, I can show what I know about food chains. Your child could present all their learning in so many different ways, from a diagram with notes to a story or comic strip. Parents’ and carers’ role is to support, encourage, help… but never to take over and do the homework! So, there’s no need to sit down and do the homework with your child – you could be getting on with some other household task. The fact that your child and you and both actively doing something can be a really good way to promote positive attitudes.

The other type of homework is Practice makes perfect. The work should be fairly straightforward for the child as there should be no need for new learning, so just some encouragement from you is needed. However, it would be a great time to get your child to teach you – they should be able to explain the key points or processes! Also, you might want to check what your child has done – not a big job.

Don’t forget that the most important things you can do at home to support learning are to be positive and encourage your child, and to make sure they read regularly, practise their spellings and practise some simple Maths – counting, number bonds (to start with, two numbers that make 10, like 3+7) and their times tables.

Using secondary sources

Year 6 are investigating what affects the length of gestation periods in mammals. Some of us are comparing gestation period to average adult weight; some are comparing it to average lifespan; and some are comparing it to average newborn weight.

We’ve used secondary sources to find out the information we need, being careful to ensure that we’re using reliable sources.

When we’ve gathered all of the information we need, we’ll create a line graph of the information and see if we can use this to predict other mammal’s gestation period according to their weight – some great Maths in our Topic lessons.

09 March 2018

For spelling this week, the children have looked through the Year 5.6 spelling list and chosen 15 words which they feel they need to practise.

Create ways for you to remember how to spell these words and generally practise using the strategies in the back of your homework book. Don’t forget to try adding prefixes and suffixes to the words. Spelling practice is best done little and often so make sure you come back to the spellings at least three times in the week. Date your practice and ask an adult to sign it to show that you’re practising regularly. There will be a test on Friday 16 March.