‘Worried’ parents taught maths

CORONAVIRUS has “hindered” an East Riding primary school’s improvement progress to close growing knowledge gaps in maths, which has left parents struggling to help their children.

East Riding Council’s Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee heard Hedon Primary School was providing extra maths resources and lessons after parents said the subject worried them the most.

Councillors heard teachers offered to help parents with maths after some said they lacked the confidence to help their children with their work.

Headteacher Amanda Barnett said the subject was one of the areas Ofsted pointed to after ruling the school needed improvement following an inspection last November.

Ms Barnett told councillors gaps in maths knowledge had grown during the pandemic after children were sent home and taught remotely.

The headteacher added year groups previously on course for results below national standards were now catching up, with Year 6 close to meeting or exceeding them.

It comes as councillors heard updates on how the school was working to address issues identified by Ofsted and how coronavirus had impacted on those efforts and more generally.

Ms Barnett said staff had been trained in mental health first aid after families requested a “huge amount” of support since pupils returned to the school in September.

She added requests from families to outside agencies for support had increased five-fold in that time, particularly for children’s behaviour at home.

Ms Barnett said: “A lot of parents have contacted us asking for further support.

“Parents were really honest in a survey, which has enabled us to plan well.

“From their responses, it seems there’s a lot of fear around maths, it’s the subject worrying them the most.

“We had knowledge gaps in maths before coronavirus, but they’ve increased during the pandemic.

“Parents have told us they’ve not had the confidence to help their children because they found maths difficult.

“There were no huge surprises from the inspection, but the result was disappointing.

“Coronavirus has hindered our progress in making the recommended improvements. “Since the inspections we’ve focused on getting the core knowledge in place, if inspectors came in now, they’d see our maths teaching is more rigorous and that we’re working at a higher level.

“We also have a Maths No Problem programme where we put resources online for pupils as well as parents.

“We provided children with a number of video clips to watch and there’s been a good uptake on that, but it’s hard to know how many are engaging with the content rather than just watching it to tick a box.

“We’re planning on embracing Maths No Problem further as we go on, we’ve got a progression document we share with parents so they can follow it.

“Key Stage Two pupils are having 30 minutes extra of maths a day and Year 2 are doing an extra hour a week.

“Staff have also been talking with parents about how to support them, that’s been really useful.”

There’s a lot of fear around maths, it’s the subject worrying parents the most Headteacher Amanda Barnett