Important update from TheSchoolRun
For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.
What this means for subscribers:
- Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
- In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
- As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.
A few changes to be aware of:
- The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
- The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.
If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.
*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.
7 strategies to help defeat children’s fear of maths
If the thought of maths lessons at school conjures up fear and dread in your child, you’re not alone. It’s called the fear of maths, and some children are convinced they can’t ‘do’ the subject, even if they’re perfectly mathematically capable.
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Why are some kids scared of maths?
One reason could be that maths is taught in school as a judgmental subject – very often answers are a matter of black or white, yes or no. ‘Understandably, children don’t like being told they’re wrong’, says Steve Chinn, an international consultant specialising in maths difficulties and author of The Fear of Maths: How to Overcome it (£10, Souvenir Press). ‘And having to do calculations in class – often quite quickly – if they lack confidence just increases any existing anxiety. Anxiety makes the working memory less effective – children just freeze up.’
Jo Boaler, Professor of Mathematics Education at Stanford University, US, and author of The Elephant in the Classroom: Helping Children Learn and Love Maths (£12.99, Souvenir Press), agrees: ‘Unfortunately, in most schools maths is taught as a closed subject with right and wrong answers, and children are drilled that it’s just the formal methods they have to remember. But actually maths is an open, creative and flexible subject so as a parent you can try and give them a different experience at home.’
‘Hearing your child say ‘I can’t do maths, I’m just rubbish at it’, can be an early sign they might be going down the wrong path with the subject’, warns Jo. But the good news is that there’s a lot you can do as a parent to help them get over their fear – and even start to enjoy maths.
Strategy 1: Anyone can crack maths
‘People used to think that only some children have the ability to be good at maths. Despite the fact that theory’s been knocked down by research, many teachers still believe it – and it filters through to pupils,’ says Jo. ‘No wonder that many kids both fear maths and don’t want to engage with the subject.’
Strategy 2: Mistakes are good
When children think they’re going to fail at something, they usually don’t try. But recent research shows that the human brain actually grows most when you make a mistake in maths. Says Jo: ‘It’s ironic, because children feel terrible if they get something wrong in maths. But parents need to reassure kids that it’s not only good to make mistakes, but when you struggle at maths it means your brain’s developing.’
Strategy 3: Take a guess
Estimates aren’t right or wrong, so using estimation can be very confidence building – as well as a useful life skill to have. ‘A good question to ask is, “Do you think the answer you’ve just got is bigger or smaller than the proper answer?” as it encourages children to think about the values of the numbers in their maths problem,’ says Steve.
Strategy 4: Play around with numbers
In maths, the ability to play around with numbers is vital for mental arithmetic as well as real-life. It’s good to encourage children to play with numbers on paper, or with big counters in front of them. Having visual images is crucial as it reinforces the concepts in their heads. ‘There are some great simple games with dice,’ says Jo. ‘Try rolling five dice and challenging your child to make a number, 20 for example, out of the dice.’
Strategy 5: Use technology
If your child finds learning times tables almost impossible – or just really dull, a computer or smart phones can be a handy rote learning tool. Steve recommends a powerful technique called “self-voice echo”: ‘Type three facts from a times table onto the screen (for example, 5 x 8s are 40), then help your child record himself or herself reading it through in their own voice. Using headphones, they can listen to the audio over and over, while reading it aloud.’ This technique work best in short bursts of up to 10 minutes a day.
Strategy 6: Act like a maths fan (even if you’re not)
Many parents are scared of maths – particularly mums (more women than men have had bad experiences of the subject in the past). ‘Research shows that as soon as mothers comfort their daughters by saying they weren’t good at maths at school themselves, their daughter’s achievement goes down in that same term,’ says Jo. ‘So always try to greet maths homework with excitement – even if you have to use all your acting skills.’
Strategy 7: Find out more about primary maths yourself
Whether you're looking for details of what your child will learn in maths in primary school year by year, teachers' tricks to help with new mathematical concepts or everyday games to play to make maths fun, TheSchoolRun has loads of information and practical resources to help.
Look through the articles on our Maths homepage, read about today's primary-school maths terminology in our numeracy glossary, download some worksheets or choose an explanatory eBook in our Shop to help you.
