Supporting your child at home 

Love for Maths!

At Dallas Road, we actively promote positive attitudes to Maths which studies have shown to improve confidence, a child’s ability to retain information and their engagement of the brain’s problem-solving capabilities. As parents and carers, you can support this at home by:

Demonstrating a positive attitude towards the subject yourself through a ‘can do attitude’ and excitement around your child’s maths learning/stories in school.

Talking about maths often. The more you talk about maths in a positive way around your children, the more likely they are to start taking a personal interest in it.

Praising your child for their effort rather than for ‘being clever’. This instils the belief in your child that, if they work hard, they can always improve.

Building upon classroom learning

In line with our mastery approach to the teaching of maths in school, we want to encourage the children to apply their learning to as many different, real-life situations as possible, both in school and at home.

Environment is key: as long as you provide a reason for children to discuss maths, they will do so. For example, ask them how to solve mathematical calculations while baking or on a walk. Talking about mathematics in contexts such as cooking, crafts, travelling, and playing with your children is the best way to make this discipline an active part of your children's day-to-day lives.

Supporting in-class learning (Number facts and fluency of recall)

At home, you can support your child to develop their fluency of number recall and facts. This will directly support their learning in class, allowing them to more efficiently access problems (through freeing up their working memory) and be flexible with their understanding and reasoning.

KS1

As a school, we recommend the White Rose ‘1 Minute Maths’ app in Key Stage 1. Children can use the app to develop within the areas of subitising (recognising quantities without counting), addition and subtraction. Your child’s teacher/s will direct you each week within our newsletters to a particular focus e.g. bonds to 20. We also recommend and subscribe to Numbots which I fun, creative way for children to practise their maths at home.

In Year 2, the national curriculum outlines that children are expected to be able to recall the facts for the 2, 5 and 10 times tables and you can support this at home through Times Tables Rockstars, encouraging your child to practise and improve whilst recognising their progress.

KS2

By the end of Year 4, the national curriculum outlines that children are expected to be able to recall all times tables facts up to 12x12 and you can support this at home through engagement with Times Tables Rockstars, encouraging your child to practise and improve whilst recognising their progress.

Other fluency focal areas include number bonds, fractions/decimals/percentages facts and general number fluency