Maths Pupil Voice June 2017

Submitted by Class 4 on

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Last week, I held pupil interviews with children from each class throughout the school in order to gain an insight about their attitudes towards Maths. Pupil interviews are exceptionally important because they let us exactly what the children feel and makes them feel valued. It also helps our school with our self-evaluation and often helps us to drive improvement.

The children were exceptionally responsive and were reflective about their learning and the teaching provided in their class.  I was so impressed with how they answered each question thoughtfully and honestly – something which is essential for school development.

The children were asked a range of questions regarding the Maths that they do in their discreet lessons, across the curriculum and as part of home learning, as can be seen below:

Do you enjoy your maths lessons?

What are do you think you are good at?

What do you think you need to work on?

What helps you learn in Maths?

What do you do when you get stuck?

Do you enjoy getting stuck?

How often do you get to solve problems or explain what you know or what you have done?

Do you practice your maths at home?

Do you get to use maths in different lessons?

Have you enjoyed completing your Meadow Monthly Maths Challenge? Why/Why not.

How could we improve the monthly challenge?

Do you think maths is useful in the real world?

Is there anything you would like to do differently in Maths?

 

Here is a summary of what the children felt:

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  • All but one child described how they loved Maths. They were exceptionally positive about their lessons, how they are delivered and the resources they are able to use to support them (where necessary).
  • All children were able to explain what they felt they were good and at what they needed to improve upon. They were able to use mathematical vocabulary accurately when communicating and showed a good knowledge of the expectations for their individual year groups.
  • All children were able to explain what helped them learning in Maths, including: money, success criterias, number lines, rulers, clocks, number squares, learning mats, teachers, black hat questions, Numicon, displays, text books, speech bubbles, quiet learning environments and their corrections.  
  • All children recognised that they are asked to solve problems and reason regularly through their daily speech bubble questions (KS 2) or their black hat challenge question (KS1).
  • The children were able to explain where they had used their Maths skills across the curriculum such as in History (Roman numerals and time lines), in Science and in PE. Many of the children were able to give specific examples of lessons they had used Maths in such as when Cl4 had explored rationing in their WW2 History unit.
  • All children stated that they enjoyed completing their Meadows Monthly Maths challenge because: it was fun, it allowed them to use their imagination and be creative, the got to do it with their brothers and sisters at home etc.
  • All children were able explain how Maths was useful in the real world, particularly KS2 who were able to explain its importance in jobs, manufacturing and industry and when shopping.

 
  • Although the children were able to explain what their strategy for when they were stuck, many children stated they would ask the teacher for help first, rather than having a go at working out how to solve the problem themselves. Many of the children, particularly in Key Stage 1 and Lower Key Stage 2, did not like being stuck as it frustrated them. As a result we need to work on children’s resilience when solving problems and encourage them to enjoy being stuck and the importance of ‘stick-ability’, where the children are able to creatively find different strategies to use in order to solve a problem.  
  • Although the children enjoy their Meadows Monthly Maths challenge, they would like the opportunity to vote for the theme of the next challenge. One child was also concerned that sometime it can be difficult to find the resources at home to use when completing their challenge homework. However as a staff we have now started to ensure that at least one investigation provided can be done with little to no use of resources for children who do not have access to them at home.

 

I have now shared this useful feedback with our Maths Link Governor and we have discussed how these comments can help us to improve.

Mrs Kuffour