I Can't Do Maths!: Why children say it and how to make a difference

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If you are like me, you are struggling at the moment to work from home; support your children with their schoolwork and try and keep it all together with a smile on your face. Our DIY Maths Feast consists of several rounds that require different skills and strategies for success. They aim to improve problem-solving skills using recreational maths, and improve teamwork and communication skills. Unlike our face-to-face Maths Feast, there’s no limit to the number of teams that a school can enter into their DIY Maths Feast and entering different sized teams to fit with your situation is acceptable. SIMPLE LANGUAGE: Our WJEC Maths Higher GCSE Revision Guide contains concise definitions, simple language and useful examples that make it the perfect learning aid for improving students' knowledge and academic confidence in GCSE Maths. Informative content and simple language ensure that all pupils will be able to gain a greater understanding of both theory-based and practical topics. Welcome to MathsDIY. I’m Kerry, a maths teacher with over 25 years experience including as Head of Mathematics. During these years I have helped literally hundreds (probably thousands) of students right through from year 3 up to those crucial years of GCSE and A level maths exams.

Our DIY Maths Feast uses the same material as our face-to-face Maths Feast, so your students won’t gain additional benefit from attending both types of Maths Feast. It’s designed to be used independently by your Year 7-8 students. It could be used as a follow-up from explicit teaching or a task for students to work through and problem-solve as they go. SIMPLE LANGUAGE: Our WJEC Maths Foundation and Intermediate GCSE Revision Guide contains concise definitions, simple language and useful examples that make it the perfect learning aid for improving students' knowledge and academic confidence in GCSE Maths. Informative content and simple language ensure that all pupils will be able to gain a greater understanding of both theory-based and practical topics. You don’t need to be an expert to support your child with maths or help them develop a good sense of number! Here are three simple but effective learning ideas that you can try with your child at home.

Grade 5

Make ‘×’ ‘÷’ and ‘10’, ‘100’, ‘1000’ cards to place face down in two piles. Roll a dice four times to create a number (e.g. 4258), then insert a decimal point somewhere (e.g. 42.58). Take a card from each pile and do the calculation (e.g. 42.58 ÷ 100 = 0.4258). convert between units of measure within one system, including time and metric units to metric units of length, area When you sign up to a DIY Maths Feast, you’ll gain access to brilliant materials that will support and embed the learning you’re doing with your students. The materials are for you to use as you wish – you could use them as:

The tables below provide links to various up-to-date resources for Wales. For younger children, it might be workbooks and flashcards to help with their understanding. For older children, it will be tailored revision for exam syllabi. Our Maths Feast is a fun educational challenge for Year 10 students which tests problem-solving and teamwork skills. This year we’re offering a ‘DIY Maths Feast’ which gives schools who can’t attend a face-to-face Maths Feast the opportunity to ‘do it yourself’ and run a Maths Feast in their school with their students. Our DIY Maths Feast materials can also be used to support remote learning if students are studying at home. Print out the resource to be used in maths books or load it onto a digital platform. It will be a great record of their learning either way.

So it is natural that we are all worrying about the impact that this will have on our children. In Wales we are expecting our children to return for four weeks before they break for summer. But the reality for my son is going to be four single 2 ½ hour sessions. That’s it. And, reading between the lines, it seems as if we are being prepared for this blending of home school learning with occasional in school sessions in September too. We’ll be exploring how using volumes of cubes, cuboids and right prisms will help you to plan out a stage or arena for your large-scale event. Furthermore, exams change all the time. So revision guides that were great five years ago are now out of date because the exam specifications are so different. Just be careful. There are a variety of tasks including getting to grips with the basics of ratios and proportion, practical skills, working with word problems, mathematical vocabulary, buddy teaching and extension activities.