I was lucky at school in that I understood maths. I certainly wasn’t in the same league as the friend I sat next to in Year 13 calculus who could come up with solutions that the teacher hadn’t even thought of (by the way – highly recommend that your child tries to sit next to someone better at them in maths in class – it’s incredibly useful), but I got by without much fuss.

However, maths is the Achilles heel for a lot of students. Particularly at Year 11 because it is a must take subject.

Over the last few years of tutoring high school maths, I’ve noticed a few trends in those who struggle with the subject…

1. They hardly do any homework/revision outside of class time. Unless your child is an actual genius, they need to be doing their maths homework on a consistent basis. Conquering maths involves repetition, and sadly there’s no short cut.

   Your child can’t expect to absorb everything they need to know sitting in class. To understand what’s going on they need to go over that material at home. It’s no lie that retention is increased by a ridiculous percentage if you read/do it again within 24 hours.

   Solution: Most high school students will have an exercise book full of problems – most of which they will never do in class. Encourage your child to find the types of equations they’ve been learning in class and do a handful of them each weeknight.

2. They haven’t had enough help and support. Up until the point of getting tutoring, the students I’ve taught haven’t had enough outside help. They’ve been confused, and haven’t told anyone that they don’t understand what’s going on in class. Nor do they tell their teacher when they’re not sure of something, so the cloud of confusion remains. Then before they know it, the teacher has moved on to the next topic and they’re even more confused than before.

   If your child feels like their maths class may as well be taught in Russian, then you might want to look into a bit of tutoring. It’s really common for kids to get outside help with maths. It’s the easiest way to bring students back up to speed with the rest of the class. It also helps boost confidence, as your child can ask as many questions as they like and not feel intimidated by the rest of the class.

   Solution: Work out where your child is with maths. Do they simply need encouragement from you to do a little bit more homework? Do they need someone to lend an ear as they solve a problem? Or do they need an outside tutor?

3. They don’t have confidence in themselves or their ability. One girl I tutored did actually know how to do the equations, but before every step she’d ask, “Do you just do this?”, or “Is that right?”. She knew what to do but had no confidence that she was doing the right thing.

   This meant that she always questioned herself, changed her mind all the time, wasted precious time during tests and exams, and sometimes didn’t even attempt questions she actually knew how to do! It was amazing to see how much momentum she gathered as soon as she realised that she didn’t “suck”.

   Solution: Your child will gain confidence in a subject once they begin to understand it. By completing more work outside of class, and having either your encouragement, or that of a tutor, they’ll begin to gain confidence in no time at all.

You can see that these three issues don’t have anything to do with ‘being smart’. A perfectly bright child can really struggle at maths if they succumb to just one of the above pitfalls. With a little encouragement and repetition you can help dispel the myth that your child is ‘bad at maths’.

P.S. Maths Centre is a fantastic website that has a whole range of free maths worksheets for Year 1 all the way to Year 13 students. Heaps of stuff for Year 11’s. The worksheets, which have both problems and solutions, can be downloaded directly from the website and printed out if your child is ever stuck for problems to do.