Maths tips

Maths Tips: General

• Annotate the question.
• Check they know the key words.
• Check they know the processes they need to use.
• Do a simple example first.
• Use real life examples that are relevant to their experience.
• Get it off the page, and make it visual/use objects to demonstrate.
• Ask your mentee to show you what they DO know.
• Practise on a white board it is easier to have a go and make mistakes.
• Write out the stages of the answer and label the outcomes.
• Write the answer with gaps for your mentee to complete.
• Ask your mentee to tell you what to do and you write.
• Write a “wrong” answer and get them to correct it.
• Do a harder one together and then set them some easier examples.

Ask children who are getting started with a piece of work:

• How are you going to tackle this?
• What information do you have? What do you need to find out or do?
• What operation/s are you going to use?
• Will you do it mentally, with pencil and paper, using a number line, with a calculator…? Why?
• What method are you going to use? Why?
• What equipment will you need?
• What questions will you need to ask?
• How are you going to record what you are doing?
• What do you think the answer or result will be?
• Can you estimate or predict?

Make positive interventions to check progress while children are working:

• Can you explain what you have done so far?
• What else is there to do?
• Why did you decide to use this method or do it this way?
• Can you think of another method that might have worked?
• Could there be a quicker way of doing this?
• What do you mean by…?
• What did you notice when…?
• Why did you decide to organise your results like that?
• Are you beginning to see a pattern or a rule?
• Do you think that this would work with other numbers?
• Have you thought of all the possibilities? How can you be sure?

Ask children who are stuck:

• Can you describe the problem in your own words?
• Can you talk me through what you have done so far?
• What did you do last time? What is different this time?
• Is there something that you already know that might help?
• Could you try it with simpler numbers… fewer numbers… using a number line…?
• What about putting things in order?
• Would a table help, or a picture/diagram/graph?
• Why not make a guess and check if it works?
• Have you compared your work with anyone else’s?

At the end ask:

• How did you get your answer?
• Can you describe your method/pattern/rule at all? Can you explain why it works?
• What could you try next?
• Would it work with different numbers?
• What if you had started with… rather than…?
• What if you could only use…?
• Is it a reasonable answer/result? What makes you say so?
• How did you check it?
• What have you learned or found out today?
• If you were doing it again, what would you do differently?
• Having done this, when could you use this method/information/idea again?
• Did you use any new words today? What do they mean? How do you spell them?
• What are the key points or ideas that you need to remember for the next lesson?