MATHS - How to keep kids interested?

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nothing to be ashamed off autistic kids are great(y)
just mentioned to try and expand and get the whole picture

Good morning friend
I never said it was, fact!!
What I CLEARLY stated was the fact that the person that
initiated the thread NEVER stated that, so why assume it!!!

I'm not having a go at you as if I did you'd know but merely ointing out
the facts.
Have a nice day

T Humanitarian

:) :)
 
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His teacher doesn't appear to be interested in pushing him beyond the current age curriculum :(

Cheers All
Doug

Couple of thoughts... Schools (in Wales anyway) have a responsibility to identify and resource MAT pupils- 'More Able and Talented'. His parents could ask for the school's MAT Policy, and see if the lad 'has a claim' under it.

On the other hand, schools have been turned upside down for ages, and just keeping the doors open has been a challenge.

Finally, if I had a pound for every parent claiming their child is, 'special', I could afford to fill my car!

Get onto them: 'doesn't appear interested' is not acceptable; but may also be a wrong impression.

CG
 
When you say past papers how far back are you going? We are in the age of "dumbing down" so maths as taught today is far less complicated and rigorous than in the past.

Look at, for example, the maths O level paper from 1974 on this site:

https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/our-research/archives-and-heritage/past-exam-material/maths/

...and compare it with a more recent equivalent, say the 2018 higher maths GCSE from here:

https://www.aqa.org.uk/find-past-papers-and-mark-schemes

Get him on some pre-1980s papers, or better still pre-1970s as with those he will have to think in old money, which might sound irrelevant but it adds an extra few calculations therefore is good exercise.



Teaching nowadays is concentrated purely on passing the exam and not on any wider knowledge or interest.



Many teachers now are degenerates only interested in drugs and left-wing politics. (I mention that for the benefit of Notch and Noseall).

You've just wasted a screen page on a rant about nonsense totally removed from Doug's grandson. He is a Year 6 pupil you moron. Doug didn't ask for 'old papers'. Read it again.
 
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The exam boards have very good text books, if he's ahead then you could get some of those to work through. But that will leave him even more bored in class.

He could pick one of the specialities that his school doesn't do for GCSE, Statistics, Mechanics etc. so he's not covering the same ground but has more to stretch his mind.
 
Look into coding clubs. Some are run at libraries.
The Raspberry Pi foundation does a lot. There are child-friendly programing "languages" focused on using blocks/images, though many able kids find them too slow to use. Python is very popular for good reason. See Scratch, which runs on a Pi. Java is catching up.

You could soon have him controlling things around the house :).

Most schools can't go off curriculum for all sorts of reasons. The BBC gave them all micro bit processors a while ago; most of them still languish at the back of cupboards, unused, because there was no space on the curriculum to use them.
Some teachers are very blinkered, they don't want to know anything off curriculum and see their job and schooling as a means to get kids though exams.

The latest Pi (pico) costs less than a tenner, but can do a lot. There are masses of free resouces online, and cheap stuff from ebay/China.
Of the BBC,arduino and Pi options for a platform, Pi is I'd say the most appropriate. See Here https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/raspberry-pi-getting-started

I wouldn't try to take him further along the standard curriculum, because he'll have to slog through it at school later anyway, whereas programming is only part of a course he may do, so it won't simply replace later work.
"ICT" is a bit of a something and nothing course, see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48188877 .


I'd say start with a suitable book and hardware so it goes together and works - try a search on "pi getting started kit". Something like £30-40 all in should do it.
 
@Doug99 - have his parents considered talking to the comp school considered a different school, or even an academy? My eldest is good at Maths, and her school is comp, but they have scholars.
 
My 11yr old grandson……….his favourite subject is maths.My worry is that he will lose interest when he moves up to the local Comp in September.

If he is really interested like my son was, he will succeed in his favourite subject, maths.

His teacher doesn't appear to be interested in pushing him beyond the current age curriculum :(

When my son was 9, his primary school teacher contacted the local secondary school and asked for maths work from S1 and S2 so his teacher was very interested in pushing my son.

And when he went to secondary the maths interest never left him. Around 14 to 15 years ago I raised a thread here in General Discussion about a maths question my then 11 year old son got for homework. It was about 2 ships crossing a river at different speeds but I’ve failed to find it in a search. Perhaps someone can. The question was used to separate those skilled in maths from those who found the subject more challenging. Hi
In the first four years he was entered into a national maths contest and on each occasion achieved gold.
In the later years at school I can’t say that my son continued display an interest in maths above any other subject but what I can say is that even without showing the interest he achieved top results at school and at university. If your grandson is really, really, maths orientated then why not ask his teacher if he or she can find some textbooks/ maths work from years 1 and 2 at the local secondary school. If he’s really keen he will jump at the chance of tackling maths work aimed at older students
 
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You've just wasted a screen page on a rant about nonsense totally removed from Doug's grandson. He is a Year 6 pupil you moron. Doug didn't ask for 'old papers'. Read it again.

Doug asked for something to help make GCSE maths more interesting. I don't know old you are Charlie but if you remember GCE O-levels you will know that they were replaced with the GCSE exams, which are much less challenging to an intelligent child, containing as they do multiple choice questions and allowing the use of calculators. The sites I linked to have O-level exam papers and syllabus details, artefacts from a time when Britain's education system was the envy of the world, and the likes of you were known as imbeciles (an imbecile is lower than a moron).
 
Around 14 to 15 years ago I raised a thread here in General Discussion about a maths question my then 11 year old son got for homework. It was about 2 ships crossing a river at different speeds but I’ve failed to find it in a search. Perhaps someone can.
Must have been a different username, I know I’m shoite at maths, but even I know 2016 wasn’t 14-15 years ago :LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL:
 
When you say past papers how far back are you going? We are in the age of "dumbing down" so maths as taught today is far less complicated and rigorous than in the past.

Look at, for example, the maths O level paper from 1974 on this site:

https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/our-research/archives-and-heritage/past-exam-material/maths/

That 1974 O level paper is probably the one I sat and passed :) The lower standard of knowledge required to pass a GSCE today is astonishing.
 
Must have been a different username
Actually, it was 2 user names. I started the thread with one user and changed it during the thread. However, because I changed the user name the search facility simply came up with user not found. And when I tried with the keywords using 2 ships, river, speed, crossing etc, nothing was found. The annoying thing is that I stumbled across the thread last week when looking at old posts.

==================================================
Here?

https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/maths-homework-for-a-12-year-old.166801/

Mod

p.s. From bolo 2: Thank you Mod!
 
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