Why is my child struggling so much with maths at school?

It’s not easy to watch your child struggle and constantly feel anxious or depressed about anything.

And it certainly shouldn’t be this way about maths.

How can it be that they’ve been learning maths since the age of 5 and still struggling now into their teens?

The answer to this is complex, but I will do my best to simplify what happens in school and why the education system fails so many students.

First off, this is not an insult to any teacher. Teachers are doing a great job with the tools and resources that they have.

Second, what I write here is based on what I have seen in schools, what I’ve learnt as a parent and learnt first hand from students and other parents and also what I have read about in books from experts on child development and education.

You don’t have to take my word as truth or believe my opinion. I only ask that you consider what I say and see if it makes sense for your situation and for the wider problems that we are currently facing in schools and the wider community.

The main problem is the way the education system is structured and the expectations within that.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Most children in the uk, start their formal education at 5 years old - some even sooner.

This is too early for several reasons.

Children at this age should be spending time outdoors, they should be playing and they should be spending most of their time with their parents and family members as much as possible.

If they need to be with other adults, it should be in small groups, so that their individual needs like talking, sharing their emotions, understanding their world etc. can be met effectively.

However, most schools in the UK, have class sizes of around 30 students, some are smaller, but these are still usually around 20 students in a class.

There is usually one teacher who leads the class, possibly with one or two teaching assistants.

All students in the class are the ‘same age’, meaning they were all born within the same year - September to August.

Maths is taught every morning to the entire class at the same time.

It is hard to make sure every student is understanding or even listening to what the teacher is saying.

Also bear in mind that some students are 8 months younger than the others. That’s a big difference at 5 years old.

Its interesting that when parents pay for maths tuition they want the classes to be as small as possible or often prefer 1 to 1 tuition. But with schooling being ‘free’ class sizes seem not to matter.

After a year of this kind of maths teaching, some students already start to fall ‘behind’.

At the end of year 2, students are tested.

Any kind of testing is stressful for students (and adults) but the effect of this stress is not considered as much as it should be.

As students get to Junior or Primary school, most schools start to group students, within the same classroom, based on ability.

Children are very aware that they are sitting at the ‘clever’ table or the ‘slow’ table.

How does this affect their self esteem and how they derive their self worth?

As they progress through junior school its very hard for those who feel behind to understand how to get better at maths.

Most do not get the 1 to 1 support that they need.

Is it the parents’ job or the teachers?’

Now let’s look at what happens when children transition to secondary schools.

We know this can be a stressful time for a lot of students.

They are going through a lot of change, both academically and personally.

Most schools group students into sets for maths based on their ability and their year 6 sats results.

Now, if students are in the top one or two sets, they get the support, the resources etc. to continue to do well and also to push themselves to get the highest grades possible - these are the students who usually get a level 7 and above... however, in year 8, there is a pattern where some students - particularly girls - also start to fall behind here and by year 10, they have dropped from doing the higher tier paper to scraping a pass.

Why does this happen?

Several reasons, mainly though, because the maths gets harder in year 8 and no one has taught these students actual study tips on how to consistently learn and improve their maths.

At this age, most teens don’t speak to their parents or teachers about it, and no one really notices until these students get to year 10 and fail their maths mocks.

It can also be due to peer pressure and choosing the wrong kind of friends.

What about the students who are in the lower ability groups?

Generally speaking, they do not get enough support in their maths lessons to improve their grades. Most of the lessons are disrupted by student behaviour.

Also at this stage, most of these students, who have been constantly receiving the subtle message, for 10 years, that you are not good enough, you are slow etc. have now lost any motivation or joy from learning maths.

That’s why nagging, punishments, detentions etc. have zero effect.

So what’s the solution?

As a parent, most of this is out of your control, especially now if your child is currently studying gcse maths.

And if your child is failing, they are probably stuck in this cycle:

Try - Fail - Overwhelm

This means, they do some maths because they have to, like their homework for example, or a mock exam.

They fail.

They feel overwhelmed with the amount of work they have to do.

And this cycle repeats, making them more stressed, sick, anxious etc.

The solution is to break this cycle.

We need to get rid of the failure and the overwhelm.

First:

Any and all comparisons to other students or siblings etc. needs to be removed.

Any pressure to perform or even pass from parents needs to disappear.

Your child needs to know that you will be there even if they fail and that their world is not going to collapse.

I usually have a chat with my students and talk about what they want and what they would like to do. This helps massively in making them feel seen, heard and in control of their lives.

Second:

We need to create small successes for them.

Often with my students, I go back to the very basics. Yes, I go back to the maths that they ‘should have’ learnt at age 5. Times tables and arithmetic.

They need to fill in the gaps and they need to start at the beginning.

Within 2 weeks of doing the basics, you will see your child’s confidence go up.

Third:

We remove the overwhelm.

I do this with my students by giving them very small amounts of maths they need to do consistently.

The topics are chosen in a way that creates small successes for them but also increases the grades by the most.

After about 2 - 3 months of doing this, you will notice a difference in your child.

If your child is struggling with gcse maths, please reach out. You don’t have to go through this on your own.