I've taught in both primary and secondary - this isn't news to me :) It can be upsetting to children to be retaught something they mastered in Y4 as though it were new in Y7. My experience when I tell secondary maths teachers this is that they don't know what to do with the knowledge. Do they assume that all children can already do it and move on? No - some can't do it and need to be taught / retaught. Some can do it, but because they are in a new school where everything is different, they are confused (I've seen this - children who could do something perfectly well in Y6 just stare blankly at their new maths teacher.) Some teacher do a baseline assessment - but the problem with this is it's usually done cold, using slightly different language, giving a false negative.
My solution would be to do a quick reheat - maybe an I do / we do / you do using the secondary examples and language and then do the baseline. You'll get a better idea of who can already do what... and maybe they won't still be teaching Y4 work to their Y10s!
As a secondary mathematics teacher I looked at most of the questions and thought that they could be either SATs or the easiest questions on a GCSE paper. Usually our strongest Year 7 students start secondary stronger than the weakest Y11 students but it is worth bearing in mind that GCSE questions get a lot harder that the ones posted here!
I would be interested to know whether the GCSE questions were from foundation or higher tier papers. My maths has mainly focused on higher tier content over the last few years, and I've not seen many (if any) questions like these on higher tier papers. However, I do like some of these questions and will them (or adaptations of them). I also now feel like I should add SATs papers to my ever-growing folder of papers!
I've picked up on the comments about teaching something as if it's the first time students have seen that content. I have taught in Australia, where I found that they have an insane "tick box" culture. Teachers have to be able to prove that they have taught every piece of content on the syllabus. It's not enough to show that students already know it, they have to be able to show it is in the notes of a student's book. Very little discussion about teaching practices, and if you're new to the system (as I was, despite having taught in the UK for a few years prior) then your voice is squashed. That sort of thing was the reason I stopped teaching in schools in Australia.
What an incredibly eye-opening survey. I’m a Year 6 teacher so I teach what children need for their SATs and I found this really difficult - I think I remember choosing SATs questions for almost all of them! It really does go to show the level children are expected to work at in Year 6.
I've taught in both primary and secondary - this isn't news to me :) It can be upsetting to children to be retaught something they mastered in Y4 as though it were new in Y7. My experience when I tell secondary maths teachers this is that they don't know what to do with the knowledge. Do they assume that all children can already do it and move on? No - some can't do it and need to be taught / retaught. Some can do it, but because they are in a new school where everything is different, they are confused (I've seen this - children who could do something perfectly well in Y6 just stare blankly at their new maths teacher.) Some teacher do a baseline assessment - but the problem with this is it's usually done cold, using slightly different language, giving a false negative.
My solution would be to do a quick reheat - maybe an I do / we do / you do using the secondary examples and language and then do the baseline. You'll get a better idea of who can already do what... and maybe they won't still be teaching Y4 work to their Y10s!
As a secondary mathematics teacher I looked at most of the questions and thought that they could be either SATs or the easiest questions on a GCSE paper. Usually our strongest Year 7 students start secondary stronger than the weakest Y11 students but it is worth bearing in mind that GCSE questions get a lot harder that the ones posted here!
I would be interested to know whether the GCSE questions were from foundation or higher tier papers. My maths has mainly focused on higher tier content over the last few years, and I've not seen many (if any) questions like these on higher tier papers. However, I do like some of these questions and will them (or adaptations of them). I also now feel like I should add SATs papers to my ever-growing folder of papers!
I've picked up on the comments about teaching something as if it's the first time students have seen that content. I have taught in Australia, where I found that they have an insane "tick box" culture. Teachers have to be able to prove that they have taught every piece of content on the syllabus. It's not enough to show that students already know it, they have to be able to show it is in the notes of a student's book. Very little discussion about teaching practices, and if you're new to the system (as I was, despite having taught in the UK for a few years prior) then your voice is squashed. That sort of thing was the reason I stopped teaching in schools in Australia.
What an incredibly eye-opening survey. I’m a Year 6 teacher so I teach what children need for their SATs and I found this really difficult - I think I remember choosing SATs questions for almost all of them! It really does go to show the level children are expected to work at in Year 6.