How are your grandchildren getting on at school?

I too missed a lot of school at the age of 7 as I had polio. Nothing at all was done to help me learn my tables or do joined up writing both of which I had missed out on. My writing is still appalling! I did OK in maths but always had to really think about my tables and say them through in my head. I really 'got' them when I used to recite them with my own children on car journeys.

I think individual teachers can do a lot of damage with maths teaching. My very bright son was told when he was 7 that he was 'bad at maths' and still believes it now that he is 29. He 'only' got B for GCSE maths and I'm sure would had done better if he didn't think he was no good at the subject. He had some marvellous teachers though from the age of 11.

I am certainly encouraging my DS and DiL to teach their sons at home as much as they can before they start school as a lot of teachers label children as bright or not very bright and treat them according to the label.

Quote from one of Gove's advisers:

"(the curriculum)... is overly prescriptive in two ways. One is that it is extremely detailed, and the other is the emphasis on linearity – it implies that children learn 'first this, then that'. Actually, people learn in a variety of different ways, and for that you need flexibility – for teachers to pick up on that and vary things accordingly."

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jun/12/michael-gove-curriculum-attacked-adviser

Agreed, nanej. My DS1 had poor concentration when he was at school - I think he just wasn't very interested. When he found out what really interested him he was very successful. He always loved reading and still does. When he discovered an aptitude for languages, as a adult, he went ahead and got terrific exam results. In his chosen occupation he has come top in exams. Mind you, he still has itchy feet and has to be doing something around the house or garden. If a child has poor concentration, is the school teaching in such a way as to capture his/her interest?

POGS if your GD has attention span of a gnat it suggests she is not yet mature enough to do the things you think she should. Maybe the school is working hard to develop her concentration skills..that can take ages with some children and believe me 'forcing' it can have the opposite impact! As long as she has no specific learning difficulty she will fly when she has cracked the concentration bit! I have seen that happen 100s of times!

butty, that is great news

Re maths teaching: when I was a chair of school governors in the eighties, I was on several selection panels for new teachers. At that time very few (I can only remember one out of all the applications) teachers had even an 'O' level in maths and yet they were supposed to be able to teach fundamental mathematical concepts to children. No chance! No wonder so many children felt they were "no good at" maths! I insisted on those selection panels that one of our selection criteria should be a minimum of 'O' level maths, or its equivalent undertaken later.

When 'O' level maths at least was required to start a teacher training course, things began to look up. Since then, I have seen very marked improvements in maths teaching. In some places there are still entrenched ideas about not letting children use hands on materials to help them with their mathematical thinking, but in my experience that usually comes from classroom assistants rather than teachers.

I blasted DD2's teacher when DD was told she couldn't use a calculator for an investigation into prime numbers that DD was doing when she was nine years old. That teacher clearly had no understanding of prime numbers

Oh Butternut, lots of that sounds familiar. I do think the lack of eye contact is very hard to deal with, but my grandson has got much better at this since he started the therapy sessions with the people from th Asperger's society.

I've recently had 5 days with my 4 yr. old grandson, having last been with him a year ago, as he lives in the States. In that year I have noticed a marvellous difference, since he started the EIP there.
He can now hold a pencil and scribble.
He will now sit on a lap, and look at a simple book
He will now occasionally give eye contact
He can now put his cheek on an arm (as a kiss) instead of biting it
He can now share his space and toys
He is now beginning to make himself understood

......and he is now a much happier little boy.

In Scotland, as well as maths, we also had to take an exam in arithmetic which I believe is still a useful life skill, even in the days of calculators and computers. On the other hand, I haven't made any use of trigonometry or calculus since the happy day I was allowed to give up maths.

I too got left behind in maths, nobody cared whether my work was correct and I don't think I ever did get a sum right.

It's interesting, isn't it, that at the grammar school I attended, and in which I was in the top sets for everything non- mathematical (including Latin and Greek) no-one did anything to help my mathematical incompetence. And, because you only had to get one Science subject second time around, it wasn't considered remotely necessary to sort out Maths. But DH was two years above me, so my Maths homework was always right!

Then I spent the last bit of my career helping my trainees pass the Numeracy tests - well, I sent them to people who could help!

If you were in school today there would be a special group for you to join to help you! I know I used to organise them!!

I missed long division moving from one country to another still cant do it

Ariadne I 'got' that as a student teacher using something called Dienes blocks!

It never made sense when the teacher said borrow from here and payback there..which of course is wrong!

Oh, nanej we are on the same planet! And, * Annobel*, I sort of knew you'd be on it too.

When my DSs went to a very progressive primary school, must be at least 35 years ago, I was dragged in to help, and found myself in a YR Maths lesson; there was a piece of paper, covered in dots, and you had to ring groups of ten dots. Road to Damascus had nothing on it. For the first time in my life, I "got" hundreds, tens and units! Bit late, though....

We should form a club! I always knew what to do in those crazy problems where taps filled up baths whilst the water went down plugholes but got them wrong because I was not good at computation...if only I had had a calculator I could have been a maths genius

It happened to my DS1 too. We moved from a county that didn't do times tables at the age of 6 - 7 to a county that did and he never quite caught up.

nanaej that is exactly what happened to me!

I still don't know my times tables! I missed out a year at school..went straight to went into what is now Y4 from Y2! Crazy..I was fine with all other bits of the curriculum but not maths and i never really caught up!

Not really trying to be stroppy, but I was honest about my DGC! And joyful about it.

Mamie I think they are all wonderful whatever their gifts/difficulties. I was just winding people up as it seems to be like Grannie boast time!

I used to live in Solihull and all anyone talked about at the school gates was their genius children so it has probably clouded my judgement. It was amazing how some of the brilliant children failed to get into the best schools and some of the ones whose parents didn't boast did.

You obviously missed my post when I was talking about my grandson with Asperger's, Alison. Despite the fact that he is amazing in a lot of ways I think we would all prefer him to be just like all the others.

Anagram I'm glad I read this thread now, it seems to me that it is easy to all have amazing GC in this virtual world.

Mine of course will be multi-talented when they go to school but as they are just 2 and 12 weeks you will have to take my word for their brilliance!

My DS was helping GS, aged 6, with his maths when little brother, aged 4, entered the room, took a look at the question and answered it, much to everyone's surprise. Goes to prove that all children have different aptitudes. I assume he's been doing pre-maths activities in preschool and it's too soon to tell if he will be mathematically minded, but he seems to be on the ball.
Times tables? Well, I'm glad I learnt them because I can do the number challenges on Countdown and get quite a lot of them right.

Oh, dear, POGS - I was feeling a bit better about the progress of my nearly 6 year olds, but now.....

My GD is six with a reading age of 10, can swim like a fish and her artistic skills are amazing. She has been drawing figures and flowers since she was 18 months old and now the detail in her drawings is wonderful to see. The two year old can sing whole songs in tune and enjoys playing the piano but her drawing is still scribble and when asked what it is, it's always a pumpkin.