It all figures now

IT’S that time of year again. The boys are back at school and the homework is coming in thick and fast. And then the dreaded words: “Mum, dad. Can you help me with my maths homework?”

I can’t be the only parent for whom these words send a shudder down the spine. And that’s just when the eight-year-old asks me. One look at the 11-year-old’s homework book and I’m in a blind panic.

The problem is not so much maths itself as I managed it at school, but I’m simply baffled by modern teaching methods and all these newfangled terms. For a start, maths is called numeracy now. And I don’t know what my children are talking about when they refer to “number bonds”, “chunking”, “partitioning” and “the grid method”.

I end up confusing them when I do a calculation showing “borrowing one” or “carrying one over”. And when I mention long division, they look at me as if I’m talking in some ancient, long-dead language.

Maths expert Rob Eastaway assures me that I am not on my own. He has produced a book to help parents understand the language of the new arithmetic, while making maths more fun.

But why is arithmetic being taught so differently now? Rob, a Cambridge graduate and former management consultant, who admits he found his daughter Jenna’s maths homework pure gobbledegook when she first started school, explains: “When most of us were at school the way we were taught, with endless pages of sums to be done in silence, owed much to the Victorian era, when society required hundreds of thousands of clerks to do mundane arithmetical calculations.

‘BUT society’s needs have changed. Calculators take the strain for us. Yet the need for mathematical understanding – for everything from financial planning to interpreting statistics – has never been greater. So the emphasis is more about understanding how numbers work and how to solve problems.”

Rob, who has also written the best-selling Why Do Buses Come in Threes? and gives maths talks across the UK to audiences of all ages, says: “We have reduced our perception of maths to being little more than difficult arithmetic.

Maths is far, far more than that. It is a creative, imaginative and deeply philosophical subject.”

As he talks me through some of the new language and methods, such as the chunking, or the grouping method for division, the grid method for multiplication and the notions of the number line and how it is used, it all starts to make sense. It is more important, he argues, for a child to understand that 7.8 x 103 is roughly 800 than to be able to work out the precise answer on paper.

“The calculator is the most sensible tool for that. These techniques are about helping children develop insight into maths and number sense,” he says.

It’s the difference, he says, between providing someone with a list of instructions for getting from A to B and providing them with a map.

“Maths teaching these days tries to help children develop mathematical maps rather than remember lists of directions.”

Although some of the methods seem newfangled, they date back centuries and would have been familiar to a Roman child using an abacus. “The Romans and Egyptians used a form of partitioning to add numbers quickly and now your children are doing it, too. Don’t be blinded by the jargon,” says Rob. “The principles are very straightforward and very old.”

It is also worth noting that, as children progress up the mathematical ladder, the techniques join up with the ones you did at school.

“There is value in the old methods. Once they are confident in multiplication, your children should be doing long multiplication calculations just like the ones you’re used to,” says Rob.

He explains that when you look at maths from your young child’s point of view, you realise that our language for counting is a mess. It’s hardly surprising they get confused.

We say sixteen and seventeen, but eleven and twelve, rather then one-teen or two-teen. We say sixty-seven and write 67, so the order of the digits matches the order in which we hear them.

But we say seventeen yet write 17, the order of the digits being the reverse of the sound order.

Children who write 61 for sixteen are not simply getting it wrong, says Rob, they are being logical, linking what they hear and say with how to write it.

So, if things are getting fraught, he advises, take a break. “Often the best way to tackle any problem is to sleep on it.”

His book, co-authored with Mike Askew, professor of maths at King’s College, London, is full of games, puzzles and test questions which challenge and reassure in equal measure. “Most of all”, he says, “it is designed to make maths at home more enjoyable for everyone.

“But of all the things a parent can do, perhaps the most important is to ensure maths is a part of daily family life, not just something you do for homework.”

■ Maths for Mums and Dads, by Rob Eastaway and Mike Askew (Square Peg £9.99).

■ Rob Eastaway’s company, Maths Inspiration, is running lectures for teenagers at Newcastle Theatre Royal on March 4.

SUMMING UP – TOP TIPS FROM ROB EASTAWAY

Play board games with your children involving dice and money. Card games are great for maths interaction too.

Let your child win. Children become intimidated if their parents are always right. Let them chip in and pretend they’re helping you to reach the right answer. If you always get the right answer, there’s a danger all your child will learn is that you’re good at maths.

Don’t praise children for being clever if they get the right answer because when they get things wrong they will feel stupid. It’s better to praise effort.

When children come up with an answer, get into the habit of asking for an explanation. If you ask them for an explanation only when it’s wrong they will think of it as a punishment and clam up.

Don’t say: “I was always hopeless at maths”. It’s usually not true and often carries the insidious message: “Don’t worry, you can be bad at maths and still be successful like me.”