Do you teach Year 6 maths? The struggle is real

If you teach Year 6 maths, and are preparing for SATs 2023, the pressure is intense. Nobody really understands it unless they’ve experienced it! The responsibility and accountability of getting 30 pupils with varied abilities and learning styles to reach their progress targets and age related expectations while ensuring breadth of curriculum, mental wellbeing and a love of school is huge. More recently with the added complication of children who have experienced 2 school years affected by the Covid 19 pandemic and the fact that SATS only came back last year, and you have really got your work cut out!

Too many resources to choose from?

The internet has opened up our access to a huge wealth of resources but some might say-maybe too many! We all settle on our own favourites and may dip in and out of different recommended providers.

Teaching Year 6 maths through a scheme

My school uses its own scheme of learning and across the country, many different schools use many different schemes or none at all. Some schools use White Rose, Inspire Maths, Maths No Problem to name but a few… We don’t all have the same autonomy in the way we choose to teach maths but ultimately the majority of us are geared toward passing the exact same SATs maths test next May!

To teach Year 6 maths you need to plug previous gaps

Let’s face it, no two children were ever the same but the gaps between them may be even more apparent now depending on their experience over the last few years. Take a look at which curriculums the 2022 SATs papers took its questions from. You will see that Years 3&4 combined have a very similar weighting to Year 5 and Year 6, so previous learning matters.

It takes time to try to figure out where all the gaps in each child’s learning are but I can help.

I have put together a handy Year 5 Mathematics Booster Programme to help identify and plug any gaps from the Year 5 mathematics curriculum in order that children can move on and progress with the Year 6 curriculum.  It assesses against all of the Year 5 maths objectives and then has video tutorials for all of the math areas that are not part of the Year 6 Curriculum. If there are lots of gaps, then you need to go back to the Year 3& 4 curriculum, children can’t move forward until they have solid foundations.

You can purchase a school licence version to have permission to share and distribute learning materials with any pupil from your school.

 

Ways to use the programme for your Year 6 pupils

1. Use the programme as an intervention tool. Children can work on different lessons individually or in small groups run by support staff. All worksheets link to an online tutorial and have the answers included to enable quick feedback.
2. Alternatively use as a Summer Holiday Programme
3. The 5 Minutes Maths A Day makes an excellent Fluency starter.
4. Use the Practice Arithmetic Papers instead of past papers to get a baseline and show progress.
5. Use the Diagnostic tool to identify gaps from Year 5 Maths
6. Use the curriculum map to correlate the gaps against the Year 6 Maths objectives (which also link to our Year 6 app)
7. Worksheets can be assigned as homework with access to the tutorials coming from the digital versions of the worksheet
8. A handy 8 week guide can be used to schedule the programme but it can be adapted and tweaked for the needs of the children.

The Year Six maths resource I had always wished for

I have also created a Year 6 SATs revision app  which is essentially a tuition programme that covers the whole of the Year 6 National Curriculum. It has video tutorials, worksheets and past SATs questions for each of the 49 Year 6 learning objectives with answers included. It can be downloaded on to mobiles or tablets and the video tutorials can even be cast on to a smart TV. Worksheets are printable or can be viewed on a device as a guide. As a teacher or tutor, it is really useful to see each of the NC skills taught with the appropriate methods and linked to actual past SATs questions to give context to each learning objective.

When I began designing the content for Pocket Private Tutor, I was very much wishing I had access to this resource while I was in Year 6 full-time. Since then, I have left and returned to teaching, started privately tutoring and am currently a SATs marker.

Here are some of the benefits I believe could be enjoyed by any Year 6 teacher or tutor

• You can dip in and out of any Year 6 learning objectives to suit
• Use the videos, worksheets or past SATs questions as a standalone activity or as a complete lesson
• Download the app onto a few class tablets so that small groups can work independently while you target another group
• Use it to revisit maths areas you have already covered or use it as a pre-teaching tool
• Use your TA to lead boosters, supported by the program. Everything is there ready-made. There is no need to read through lesson plans. Simply print off the worksheets and use alongside the lesson videos. A small group of children could view the learning content together OR each child could work on separate lessons independently
• For your own CPD and to save time! Let’s be honest. We don’t know everything and we can’t always be super creative.

Minimal subscription cost

We are currently working on being able to offer school licences but for the time being, the app can be downloaded onto individual tablets for just £9.99 per month. That is complete access to every single Year 6 learning objective. When  compared to some other services being offered at £20 per hour per pupil with a minimum commitment of 6 weeks, it’s a no-brainer!

Download the app today for free and try out 6 lessons first before you commit!

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