Mathematics Newsletter Term 1 Week 7 (2025)

As 128 GHS mathematicians prepare to flex and build their problem solving skills in the international Kangourou sans Frontières mathematics competition on Tuesday of week 8, my mind started to think that perhaps as kaiako we do not do not do enough work with caregivers in helping you to support your tamaraki grow their mathematical skills, and so open the way further to numerous stimulating (and often well paid) careers..

A fair portion of the advice for caregivers below is taken / adapted from advice from the excellent Tom Maths on BlueSky (https://web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/teakayb.mathsy.space). The rest is my take, and based on my personal experience gained over the past 30 plus years since I started teaching.

If you’re after a quick takeaway without all the specifics: Model resilience and positivity, and engage with mathematics in front of and with your tamariki, just like you would in any other area of their development.

If you’re looking for more specifics of what you can do, or think that there’s very little you can do, keep reading.

You don't have to be a qualified mathematician, or even "good" at maths (whatever that means), to help your son/daughter progress in the subject. All that's required is modelling resilience and positivity towards what they're doing, and avoiding reinforcing negativity about maths (when I give the answer to "so what do you do?" asked by someone I've just met, the response is usually something like "oh, I've never been any good at maths", or "I hate maths", or "Maths is pointless because I've never used algebra since I left school").

You might have some reservations, like those expressed below, in how much you can do to help your son/daughter. So, following each possible reservation is some advice over how to overcome these thoughts, and how to help your son/daughter become their best in maths.

1. Your tamariki might use different methods in maths now

You might recognise the question they are working on, but their method is completely different from the one you know.

This is totally not a problem:

get them to teach you their method,
teach them yours.

Work together to help each other understand your methods. Ask yourselves why both of them work? Can you find reasons why one may be "better" than the other? There are no right answers here (but "this is the way I was taught it" is definitely a wrong one).

2. Your tamariki are doing different topics in maths than you did at school

They're doing something you don't recognise, or maybe something that you do recognise but never got the hang of it?

This is also totally not a problem:

Get your son/daughter to teach you as much of it as they can.

There's a popular quote, probably falsely laid on Einstein: "You don't really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother/father." Also, the process of your son/daughter attempting to explain something, and then revising that explanation if it doesn't work perfectly the first time, provides excellent motivation to explore the why behind things rather than just settling for being able to turn a handle and get the right answer out.

It it ever feels like you or your son/daughter hit a dead end. Throw a yet in and see what happens: "I don't understand it" is final. "I don't understand it yet" is full of possibility, promise and potential. Learning new things is a positive thing, and not (yet) understanding something is an important step on the way to learning something new.

3. You’ve never been any good at maths

Work to get out of the habit of saying things like "I've never been any good at maths," "I've always hated maths," "I've never seen the point of maths," etc.

Stop doing it in front of other adults as well. Who knows when your son/daughter is going to overhear? This may mean that you need to change your own mindset regarding maths, and that's fine too. It's totally fine for us to find things difficult: the problem comes when that's used as an excuse for switching off and giving up.

If you've moved on from maths-negativity but every other adult in your tamariki’s life is carrying on with it, that’s still a problem for them. Challenge other adults who have a negative mindset.

Remember, nobody is born with expertise in any subject or sport or anything else requiring skill, and absolutely everyone is capable of becoming better today in any of these areas (including maths) than they were yesterday.

4. You already always encourage your son/daughter do their homework

Try to model mathematical positivity at times other than when they're doing homework. Ask mathematical questions about everything.

Three maths questions - good for any occasion - to get you started:

Is there a pattern here?
Can we explain how that pattern works?
Can we predict what might happen in a slightly different situation based on this?

5. You don’t know anyone who is positive about maths

Being positive about maths can be exhausting because you're often going against the flow. An excellent way to make it easier and more natural is to introduce more maths-positive people into your life, and then interact with them and ask them things.

Maths is a very active topic of conversation on social media where the hashtag #tmwyk stands for "talking maths with your kids".

Responding to social media posts, or even just liking them at first, will encourage others to post more and expand the community. When you've gained a little confidence, throw your own posts tagged with #tmwyk into the mix as well.

6. But you still feel you’re honestly not very good at maths

Maths fans and maths-phobes all think maths is hard: for maths-phobes, that's one of the reasons they don't want to engage with it. For maths fans its exactly why they do want to engage with it.

You find something hard? Good. That means you're pushing the limits of what you're capable of, and the great thing about those limits is that they're not fixed: when you push on them they move.

7. It's not your job to teach your own tamarki maths

Nobody can learn maths with just 3 - 5 hours contact per week with someone who cares about it.

As caregivers we want help our tamariki to succeed at life, so it absolutely is our job to get involved with their maths skills development. The beauty is that your part of that job can be so much more open and so much less rigid and formal than the bits that their teachers have to do.

That’s that then, remember in summary: Model resilience and positivity, and engage with mathematics in front of and with your tamariki, just like you would in any other area of their development.

Finally, good luck to all GHS mathematicians taking part in the Kangourou sans Frontières next Tuesday. We’re really looking forward to seeing how you get on. Remember to have fun too, no-one is expected to complete all of the questions.

Oh, and in case you’re interested in following us, we’re on BlueSky too (https://web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/ghsmathematics.bsky.social) as well as Facebook (Geraldine High School Mathematics).

Fame JR and 80s Extravaganza