Category: Primary Maths

The Building blocks of mathematics is all about learning the basic skills. The important role is basic math skills in which students can apply and remember for future to implement several strategies.  It combines important information on the brain and learning with potential on the best ways to approach and learn effectively.

WHAT TO FOCUS ON IN PRIMARY MATHS AND PSLE MATHS?

Let’s study the pie chart given above:

Fractions

Additionally it is multi-topical and crucial to understand a way to resolve them to reap desired effects whilst implemented in real-lifestyles circumstances.

Calculation

The mastery of the four operations, particularly addition, subtraction, multiplication, and department; spread throughout diverse content regions which includes fractions (blended numbers, right and wrong fractions)

Angles

It uses the residences of angles to locate unknown angles with a clear explanation of acquiring the answers.

Area and Perimeter

Finding those for composite figures made of squares, rectangles, triangles, semicircles, and zone-circles too

Decimals

It’s far giant to have a stable basis for place price concepts!

Distance, Time, Speed & Rate

Which includes multi-steps word troubles throughout various real-existence application situations

1. Carelessness of students (not reading and understanding the problem sum)

It’s miles the failure to offer sufficient interest to keep away from mistakes. It also means inattention, heedlessness, thoughtlessness, negligence, and imprudence. Irrespective of how eloquent and fluent your baby can be in his PSLE maths talents, all college students tend to be careless and much less attentive once they do now not become conscious to test through their steps, in particular in PSLE maths checks. Our PSLE and number one maths teacher stipulates that wordy, more tough hassle sums might not be that difficult at the outset, however they could show intricate, in particular worded and study.

The careless scholar will now not pay as much heed as a centered student. As a habit, carelessness and much less interest will motive the student to misinterpret or misread the question, making undesirable calculation mistakes. Likewise, students who do now not take some time to study and apprehend the hassle sums carefully fail to capture keywords and examine the questions effectively. Normally, those college students carry out fairly in maths. Nevertheless, they occasionally do no longer bother to discover the questions, particularly throughout their fundamental assessments, as they rush to finish their paintings impatiently.

2. Weak in fractions, ratio, and percent

Generally, students who do no longer do properly in primary maths will affect their grades in the PSLE maths exam. Some of the student’s performance in solving fractions may be vulnerable due to their foundation. In addition, it’d at once have an effect on their expertise and overall performance within the subjects of ratio and percent. Some have weaknesses within the easy subtraction and multiplication or division of fractions and fail to lower the solutions to a minor time period.

3. Time control

Frequently, by using PSLE, many students could have had a move-to technique of dealing with time pressures in the course of a PSLE maths final exam. However it can be because of nerves or different motives that scholars devoted to getting every question responded well. They may spend an excessive amount of time on a specific query and neglect the time wished for the relaxation. So when it comes to hurry time, the scholars might also find themselves running out of time to do the questions they could have without problems labored the solutions to.

Students should learn how to time-manipulate and strategize how plenty time they might permit on each query. Then they ought to have an iron will to transport on whilst time’s up, even supposing they’re now not executed with the query. Eventually, if college students can entire all or most questions and the paper with time to spare, they could go back to the questions had issues completing the first time round.

4. Strain at some point of exams

Often, college students who do not have a good deal self belief in maths within the first region fall prey to the idea of heightened stress during the actual sitting of the exam. Parents might also have found out this, noticing that their kids perform well or as predicted throughout training or easy tests or tests concerned with teachers and tutors.

Conclusion: there seem to be conflicted colleges of idea regarding whether or not strain related to ‘examination conditions’ exists. Nevertheless, college students with this tendency find themselves unable to do nicely at some stage in an real exam, affecting their esteem and confidence even similarly. Consequently, the instruct suggests dad and mom look at ways to boost their infant’s shallowness via helping them to control their anxiety. Except doing meditation, exercising, tune, art, and other methods to avoid this, additionally they advised mother and father to tone their expectancies and help their youngsters manipulate them.

5. Lack of  “correct” exercise, exercise, practice.

Ultimate however now not least, the concept is that students lack exercise or, in standard, do now not do enough exercise questions. The opposite is nearly constantly genuine. The ones college students exercise a lot, from evaluation books to getting extra work thru remedial instructions to lessons and every now and then extra training.

It shouldn’t be surprising to see a kid struggle in a particular subject in today’s time. In fact, PSLE Maths is one of the subjects that most kids struggle to conceptualise as it requires logic and understanding. In short, Maths is not as easy as it seems and it’s not everyone’s forte. Although, there are some students who seem to breeze through the subject without any difficulty.

If you have kids struggling in Primary Maths, don’t despair. When it comes to Maths, there’s still hope! In this article, we’ll discuss some interesting points on why these students struggle in Math and how Global Education can help them do better without compromising on their mental health.

Here’s what you need to understand first

Unfortunately, not all children are born with a natural propensity towards Math and the ones who are successful in Math, don’t necessarily tend to be good in other subjects. Learning mathematics can be challenging, especially if the child struggles in the subject at home or school. As a result, it becomes challenging to cope with the pressure.

Here are some of the reasons why your kid is not performing well.

The questions that appear on the Final Paper

There are many kids in Singapore who faces so much pressure due to the overwhelming questions that appear on their final paper. Sometimes, it’s so overwhelming that they give up on the question in advance because it doesn’t make sense to them, leading them to have doubts about the answer despite how much practice they had.

Let us show you an example that was recently trending in Singapore. This was one of the questions that left kids trembling.

“Helen and Ivan had the same number of coins. Helen had a number of 50-cent coins and 64 20-cent coins. Helen’s coins had a total mass of 1.134kg. Ivan had a number of 50-cent coins and 104 20-cent coins.”

1.  Who has more money in coins and by how much?
2.  Given that each 50 cents coin is 2.7 grams more heavier than a 20 cent coin, what is the mass of ivan’s coins in kilogram

Unfortunately, this particular question turned out to be quite complicated, requiring kids to go through so many calculations and considerations that may often leave them confused and very much unsure of the correct answer. Even adults had difficulty answering this question.

The poor grades

Many parents in Singapore have high expectations of their kids performing well in their school. And that’s okay but if their kids don’t do well, he/she could be labelled a failure and it could affect their self-esteem. Moreover, some kids fear their parents for calling them out for not studying hard enough by lecturing or punishing them. These are valid factors that could lead a child to do poorly.

Whilst, some may be able to escape the pressure as their parents are generally supportive, some children just cannot cope hence causing stress and anxiety in a child.

Pushing fear onto the kids

Some may think that enforcing fear in a kid might push them to do better in life but instead, it may also do the complete opposite. Parents or teachers would warn kids that if they fail in school, they can never come back from that as others would only see them as failures. But this really discourages kids to believe in their ability to succeed.

In fact, the kids may begin to convince themselves that they aren’t good enough and this may hold them back to engage with their studies.

How Global Education in Singapore can help struggling kids?

 If your kid is struggling to perform in Math, it could be because of:

• Fearful of the subject
• Fear of failure
• Not having enough practice
• Difficulty in understanding the logic
• Feels demotivated after a poor performance
• Doesn’t have a great support system

But Global Education is offering an alternative solution. With our extra-curriculum program, we can help students hone their skills at problem-solving, strategic thinking, and mastering topics that are eventually covered in the PSLE. There is only so much students can learn and perform with. But with enough time to reach out to struggling students and help them cope, kids could eventually gain confidence and perform to their highest ability.

It is our goal to have a positive impact on the life of a child by taking him/her away from the stressful pressure that school life often causes.  Global Education recognizes that it is not about getting the right grades but rather, the journey. If students are having trouble with their schoolwork, we help them to boost their skills by coaching, helping them through the conceptual issues in their works.

If you are a parent looking to take your kid off the pressure and push him/her to perform well in Math, there is a great alternative in Global Education. Our dynamic, creative, and motivational teachers are truly passionate about children and truly believe that children should be encouraged to believe in themselves and their abilities. As a parent, you can see that our presence instils a safe environment for children to flourish in and gain confidence.

Reach out to us!

The Maths Olympiad is a common term tossed around throughout math tuition in Singapore, but did you know there are two kinds of Maths Olympiads? While there is an International Maths Olympiad, there is also one tailored specially for students in Singapore – the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad. It is this prestigious competition that many students vie for a chance to participate in.

What is the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad?

Founded by the Singapore Mathematical Society, the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad is an annual competition where students compete in different divisions to test their Secondary and Primary Maths ability. There are three different sections of the Olympiad, divided by age. Each section comprises two rounds, the first of which is usually held in late May or early June, and the second in late June or early July.

Junior Section

The junior section is geared at lower Secondary Maths students. The first round consists of five multiple-choice questions, each with five options, and twenty open-ended questions. Questions may come from topics in the lower Secondary syllabus, such as algebra, number theory, geometry, pattern recognition, and simple combinatorics. The second round is three hours long and consists of six essay questions. Students have to come up with detailed proof and formulae for each question, explaining their working process and findings.

Senior Section

The senior section is open to upper Secondary Maths students. Similar to the junior section, the first round of the senior section consists of five multiple-choice questions with five options each, and twenty open-ended questions. However, the scope of the topics tested is different, based on the upper syllabus. Students are expected to have a firm knowledge of probability, algebra, number theory, geometry, and combinatorics. Only the top scorers of the first round are invited to continue to the second round, which consists of a four-hour-long paper including five questions of varying difficulty. Since the participants are narrowed down in the second round, one can expect the competition to be much fiercer.

Open Section

The open section is meant for pre-university students. Unlike the junior and senior sections, the open section does not have any multiple-choice questions. Instead, the first round is made up of 25 open-ended questions, testing the topics of probability, algebra, number theory, geometry, combinatorics, and also occasional calculus. While the topics are similar to those in the senior section, the difficulty level is considerably higher. Just like the senior section, only the top scorers of the first round are invited to continue to the second round, where they will have to take a 4.5-hour-long paper of five essay questions. The six top scorers of the second round will then be selected to represent Singapore in the International Mathematical Olympiad.

How Can My Child Prepare For the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad?

The Singapore Mathematical Olympiad is not your regular exam. While a child may be doing well in their A-maths tuition in Singapore, they may not necessarily possess the skills required to do well in the Maths Olympiad. Usually, each school selects a number of top students to represent the school in the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad, providing them the training and material to master the problem-solving and answering skills required for the Olympiad. However, many students and parents alike worry if this is ample preparation for one of the fiercest mathematical competitions.

It can be difficult to prepare for the Maths Olympiad as there are no textbook answers like in the regular O-levels. That said, there are resources and past-year papers from the Olympiad that can help your child familiarise themselves with the answering format and required concepts. It is important to consider that if your child is in Secondary 1 or Secondary 3, they will be competing against students who are one level higher than them and thus have studied the syllabus for an additional year. As such, going through the school syllabus, even the topics they have not learnt yet, can help to put your child on par with their seniors.

Time management should also be a concern. In the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad, mastering the different types of questions is not enough – your child must also be capable of completing each paper within the time constraints. This makes it all the more important to practice so that your child will know each question like the back of their hand.

Does Math Tuition in Singapore Help My Child Score in Maths Olympiad?

Has your child been selected to represent their school in the Maths Olympiad? Congratulations! You may be wondering if it is necessary to start on A-math tuition in Singapore in preparation for this rigorous challenge.

Since the Olympiad syllabus and question format differs from the regular school syllabus, mastering the regular questions in Secondary and Primary Maths tuition may not be sufficient to prepare one for the Olympiad. While there are some tuition classes geared toward preparing students for the Maths Olympiad, we believe it is possible to achieve top scores as long as your child focuses on drilling themselves for the competition. Remember that the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad is intended to be difficult and challenging, so it is important not to get discouraged if a question proves too daunting. Hard work and perseverance is the key to success!

For many parents, tuition is probably the default go-to option at the first sight of failing grades. Many are the recommendations from friends, family and peers on the best tutors and tuition groups that are a sure-win for any student. Acclaimed tutors have their schedules fully packed with students whose eager parents see them off to tuition every week. After every test and exam, students bring their papers home, where their parents and tutors pore over their improving grades…or so they say.

However, this raises the question: is tuition really the answer to scoring well in Primary Maths? Is attending tuition the magic catalyst that will guarantee good grades, or is it just a placebo? Well, let’s look at how tuition can help and the situations in which it may be less useful.

How Does Tuition Help?

Some parents swear by tuition to help a failing child. There have been countless reports of students who did extremely poorly in their prelims, only to bounce back from the brink with the aid of a good tutor – and move on to scoring a clean slate of As in PSLE. Although such a miracle is probably every parent’s dream, it requires plenty of hard work behind the scenes. After all, it is ultimately the student who is sitting for the examinations, not their tutors or teachers. Even if they undergo intensive practice under the guidance of a tutor, the most important ingredient to excelling in PSLE Maths is to study hard and be willing to learn.

The key to making the most out of tuition classes is not to overload them on your child, but to use them to supplement your child’s learning. Sometimes, less is more – a few quality sessions might help your child retain more information than a fully packed schedule of classes. Finding the right tutor and class style is also paramount to helping your child get the most out of their class. It is important to establish a good tutor-student relationship, where the student feels comfortable enough around their tutor to ask questions and seek clarification, and the tutor is able to explain so that the student can understand. Some tuition classes are held in groups, which different students may or may not prefer. It all comes down to your child’s learning style – if you are able to find a great tuition setting for your child to thrive in, tuition can really give them a leg up on their exams.

That being said, we believe that tuition alone is not the magic solution to solving everything. A child can be attending the best tuition classes with the most accredited tutors, but if they do not have the motivation to learn and improve, the tuition fees and time spent would have gone to waste. Additionally, the lack of access to tuition should not be a barrier to scoring good grades. With the right attitude and sufficient practice, any child can unlock their potential and achieve top scores in the PSLE.

Tackling PSLE Maths Without Tuition

Tuition may not always be an option for everyone, nor should it be a requirement to excel at Primary Maths. If you do not have the luxury of sending your child to tuition, what are some ways in which you can support your child throughout their journey in Primary Maths?

Revise with Your Child

It can mean the world to your child if you sit by their side and take part in their revision. Even if you are not familiar with the subject or topics they are studying, making the small effort to acquaint yourself with their syllabus can be a great confidence booster. What’s more, you can sit through e-lessons together and quiz your child on the concepts they have just learned to reinforce their knowledge!

Play Educational Games with Your Child

Educational games do a great job in reinforcing new concepts without being a chore. When children are able to engage themselves in something fun and exciting to supplement their learning, they are then better able to internalise new concepts. In addition, educational games can help your child to understand difficult topics better. For instance, if your child has problems understanding money, playing some board games such as Monopoly can help your child to learn how money works in a practical situation.

Point Out Real-World Applications of Primary Maths

The textbook syllabus may seem as if it has no place in the real world when a child is first learning it. This may cause them to wonder if it is really all that important to pay attention to their Maths lessons. Often, students who are struggling with Maths become disheartened and lose motivation if they do not see how it can be useful to them when they grow up. As we know, however, there are countless ways in which Maths can be applied to the real world, from percentages in discounts to real-life word problems. The best way to show your child the usefulness of Maths is to point out real-life applications of the topics they have learned!

A good number of primary school students are seeking help from tuition teachers for their studies. These days, it would be uncommon for top students not to have a helping hand in order to keep up with the increasing difficulty of the primary school syllabus. For instance, the PSLE standard for Primary Maths is getting tougher each year, with even teachers scratching their heads over some of the problems. You may be wondering if it is time to get in touch with a tuition teacher for your child. Well, here are some observations that may mean that your child requires tuition.

Your Child is Having Difficulties with Homework

Teachers often assign homework to help students practise what they have learned in class. If a student has been keeping up with their classes without problems, they should also be able to complete their homework most of the time without requiring help. However, if your child frequently asks for homework help or does not know how to do most of the questions, this is usually a sign that they are having difficulties keeping up to speed with the topics that are being taught in class. Since primary school class sizes typically range from 30 to 40 students, teachers usually cannot afford to slow down for a select few.

Your Child is Scoring Poorly in Tests

Tuition classes ideally start in conjunction with the beginning of the school year, as students will have more hours of practice and the tuition teacher can clear up any doubts before moving on to the next topic. Unfortunately, some students only realise too late that they have difficulties with their schoolwork, such as when they receive a poor grade on a test. Even if it may be disheartening, getting a low score is not the end of the world. Your child may have missed out on the added benefit of attending tuition classes for the first part of the year, but it is never too late to seek help for their studies. A good tuition teacher will be able to work with your child to iron out any pitfalls and misconceptions. Addressing outstanding problem is a huge step towards achieving a better score.

Your Child Runs Out of Time during Exams

While exam papers can be gruelling, they are crafted to be completed within the stipulated time frame, if assuming students are familiar enough with the question types and answering techniques. If your child is frequently running out of time to finish their exam paper, this may be an indicator that they lack familiarity with some of the concepts or techniques. One can practise with any amount of assessment books and papers, but sometimes, it takes a good tuition teacher to suggest easy techniques that students can use to answer their test questions more efficiently. The more your child practices with the new methods they are taught, the more familiar they will be with common question types likely to come out in the exams, and the faster they will be able to answer each question. Once your child has mastered the art of working through test papers, they will be surprised how easy it is to finish everything within the time limit – with extra time for checking!

Your Child is a Precocious Learner

Since parents often associate tuition classes with catching up on the school syllabus, this may come as a surprise. However, if your child is ahead of their peers and has been breezing through their schoolwork, it may be a good idea to sign them up for some enrichment classes to promote further mental stimulation. Unlike tuition for revision, enrichment programmes are aimed at stretching your child’s mental capacity and inspiring them to realise their full potential. Students will also be provided with opportunities in school to use this extra knowledge, such as in the Gifted Education Programme, Maths and Science Olympiads, spelling bees, and other special competitions. Moreover, allowing your child to keep on learning beyond the classroom teaches them that there is always room for improvement and encourages them to continually better themselves.

One of the best ways for children to pick up primary maths easily is to show them how maths is used in the world around them. For instance, one can teach a child to count money by taking them along on grocery shopping trips. However, with the pandemic these days, people are staying home more often than usual and not all classes are back to normal, severely limiting the opportunities you may have to teach your child primary maths. Even so, this does not mean that your child has to lose out on valuable avenues to learn while awaiting normal life to resume. There are numerous ways through which one can still teach their child math in a fun and engaging way while at home.

Playing Board Games

It may be obvious that board games involving play money can be a great way to boost children’s addition, subtraction, and mental summing skills. Is your child bored of doing repetitive textbook exercises? If you are looking for an engaging way to get your child to exercise their mental skills, bringing out money- or a point-based board game is a great start. Have your child act as the scorekeeper or banker, and have them showcase their maths skills! You can also use this method to teach your child handy concepts such as algebra, statistics, and word problems. By learning ways to apply their textbook knowledge to a fun game scenario, your child can enjoy better memory retention, leading to more effective learning. For an added challenge, give a multiplier to each unit of the game’s currency – for instance, every dollar in the game is multiplied by two.

Even though money or points provides an ideal opportunity for your child to learn maths, other problem-solving board games should not be overlooked either. Maths is far more than just counting numbers – it is important to build a strong foundation on analytical thinking so that one can pick up higher levels of maths with greater ease in higher education.

Shop Online with Your Child

Online shopping often makes it easy to forget all about counting totals as the prices are automatically calculated for you. With the right approach though, you can turn an online shopping spree into a great educational experience for your child.

Instead of simply adding items to your cart and allowing the system to tally the prices automatically, let your child practice their money and decimal calculations. Tell them the prices of each item you are adding to your cart, and have them manually calculate the total cost. You can even join in and test your mental calculations as well! Finally, double-check the answers with the actual system-calculated total and see if you are both correct.

The great thing about online shopping is that you can also teach your child about percentages by applying the idea of discounts, which are very widely used in the real world. This way, your child will be better able to appreciate the applications of percentages in real life.

Playing Online Educational Games

While board games provide a great way for children to learn the basics of counting, it may feel limiting for older children, especially those who are studying PSLE maths. These children may benefit more from playing online educational games to enhance their maths skills. A quick online search for educational games can yield numerous options for your child to try out. Through fun and engagement, your child will absorb the maths concepts easier and apply their newfound knowledge to their studies more efficiently.

Playing online educational games also paves the way to get children interested in programming and development, a very useful skill later in life. This interest can help to improve their future maths and problem-solving aptitude.

Keep Track of Time

Some children may find it difficult to calculate the time when they are first learning it. If your child is struggling with learning time, what about helping them understand it in a real-time scenario? Instead of directly telling your child the time, try giving them a relative measure, such as “a hundred minutes from now”. You can also quiz them periodically on time. For instance, ask them to tell you what time it was “three hours earlier”.

Getting your child a watch, if they do not already have one, is an excellent way to teach them about time. In addition to boosting their maths textbook knowledge, watching the time also gets children to be more mindful of their time management, leading to better self-discipline and performance in their other studies.

Practice Questions

While there are creative ways to assist your child in their maths learning, you can always still go back to the time-tested practice questions and papers to drill your child on important maths concepts. These books are readily available from any bookstore, making practice questions a great go-to exercise if you need to change up any activities.

Practice questions often come as a cohesive learning tool incorporating all major primary maths topics, allowing your child to focus on the topic they are weakest in. Alternatively, you can also find past-year maths papers from other schools and the time your child to simulate a real assessment. This also helps the child to practice good time management and complete each question as quickly as possible. Remember to have them use the remaining time to check their answers to prevent careless mistakes.

Boost Your Child’s Primary Maths Prowess!

Fortunately, one does not have to feel short-changed by the current pandemic restrictions, as there are still numerous ways to enhance one’s maths learning at home. Is your child having difficulties with their primary maths or PSLE maths? Give some of these creative learning opportunities a try and watch your child become proficient at maths!

For most children, studying begins in the classroom, in tuition class, and when they are doing their homework or revising at home. Once their studying time is over, they simply move on to relax without thinking about the concepts they have learned.

What if there was a way to keep children on the lookout for Maths in their everyday lives? When revising Maths with your child, whether at the Primary, Secondary, or JC level, it always helps to relate the concepts they learn to real-life applications. This helps to reinforce each subject and how it can be used in one’s everyday life, making it easier for the child to absorb content and apply it effectively. What are some common Maths topics that we often come across in our daily lives, and how can we use these applications to teach children JC Maths?

Money and Finance

With the advent of credit cards and digital payment methods, we may not need to spend so much time counting money or calculating the cost of items any longer. However, money is still one of the common examinable topics in Primary Maths word problems. To help your child get a stronger grasp on the technicalities of money, encourage them to immerse themselves in real-world applications of money. For example, going on grocery shopping trips together can be a great bonding experience as well as an effective way to teach children to count and save money.

Take this primary school Maths question as an example:

Jenny has 30 50-cent and 20-cent coins. She has a total of $9. How many 20-cent coins does she have?

HINT: Use the Assumption Method or Guess & Check

Answer: 20

Even at higher levels of Maths, finance is still an important topic. Students will be introduced to the concepts of interest, investments, and installments, to name a few. Understanding these concepts is not only imperative to scoring well in Secondary and Junior College Maths, but it also improves one’s financial literacy and better equips one to face the adult world.

Geometry

Geometry is all around the world we live in, from the architecture of buildings to the layout of the land. However, when students are learning about theories such as Pythagoras’ Theorem, they may find the content dry and wonder how these concepts can be relatable to their lives.

One of the most obvious applications of geometry and angles is in architecture. In Singapore, we can find all sorts of angles and shapes in the various buildings around us, from HDB flats to shopping malls and office buildings. Prompt your child to note down interesting angles they observe and whether these are acute, obtuse, or right angles. What do they notice about the shapes of most buildings? Here is a question for your child to try.

A tall tree AB and a building CD are standing opposite to each other. A portion of the tree breaks off and falls on top of the building making an angle of 30^°. After a while it falls again to the ground in front of the building, 4 m away from the foot of the building, making an angle of 45^°. The height of the building is 6 m. Find the total height of the tree in meters before it broke.

Source: CAT Trigonometry Exam

HINT: Use Sin and Tan of Angles

Answer: +21

Speed, Time and Distance

This key topic is first introduced to students in upper primary and later follows them through most of their school years. Even for those who have long graduated from school, speed, time and distance are still concepts we use all the time, be it while traveling to another country or simply walking to another spot in our homes. In secondary school, especially in Physics, students will learn about the vector velocity to replace speed, making it important to grasp the basics of speed, time, and distance as early as possible.

In addition to sharpening their Math skills, teaching children to be conscious of these values helps them to improve their time management. When they have a better idea of how long they will take to travel to a certain location, how fast they need to travel to get there, or even how much time they need to finish a task, they will become more aware of time and how to use it efficiently.

Probability and Statistics

A topic most only learns in higher level Maths, probability and statistics may seem simple at first, but soon branch into more complex territory especially for Junior College Mathematics.

For example, what is the probability of getting the same number on 2 dice 6 times only if I roll both of them together 12 times?

Ans: (924)

Fortunately, probability and statistics are very common problems in real life and children should be exposed to how concepts are applied in these situations. Of course, gambling and betting are obvious examples of how probability can be applied, but it may be best not to use these as teaching tools for young children. Sporting events can be another way to teach children about these concepts. Whether they are participating in the events or simply watching, ask your child if they can tell you what the mean, mode, and median scores are. What are the interquartile ranges for each round? Is the standard deviation large or small, and what does this say about the consistency of each player? These concepts are commonly tested in Maths papers and using real-world events to teach children can help them to internalize the terms better.

Maths is a key foundational subject. As one of the three core subjects students are introduced to from the beginning of their Primary school journey, mathematical skills are essential for child in our education system.

Struggling with Maths?

However, not every student has a natural aptitude for primary Maths. Some may find it tedious or stressful, especially if they have difficulty grasping the concepts early on. Rote and rigorous methods of teaching Maths serve only to dull an appreciation for the subject, not to mention that the concepts taught are mostly theoretical – failing to provide real-life applications.

For those who are more linguistically inclined, the fact that Maths is such an important part of primary education may feel unfair. For example, every child has the opportunity to take a screening test to be offered a spot in the Gifted Education Programme (GEP). The test assesses a student’s proficiency in English, Maths and logical thinking, requiring them to score exceptionally well in all three areas to be accepted into the programme. Students who struggle with Maths but excel in languages will be screened out of the Gifted Programme. The requirement for strong mathematical skills only increases further up the education system.

Therefore, it is in every student’s best interests to secure a solid foundation of the topics in Primary Maths as early as possible. Fortunately, with the right guidance and practice, it is not difficult to score in examinations, no matter mainstream, GEP or the PSLE. There are ample resources available to aid a student’s study of Maths, including revision tools, textbooks, past-year papers and question banks, to name a few.

Maths Enrichment

Most students in Primary school will be familiar with Math Olympiad, an annual local competition designed to challenge students with unconventional question types. Math Olympiad is typically on an opt-in basis, where interested students can apply for the training classes and then choose to attend the competition. Some schools may restrict the eligible applicants to only those in certain streams or those who are already doing well in Maths, leaving many without a chance to experience Math Olympiad questions at all.

Lately, teachers and parents have noted that the questions in Maths Olympiad have actually been making their way into upper primary Maths papers, especially the PSLE. In recent years, questions leaked from PSLE Maths papers have gone viral, where parents complained that the papers were becoming too difficult and that even a higher-level student would have difficulties answering the questions correctly.

Based on the way scoring works in the PSLE, it is normal to expect a number of exceptionally difficult questions designed to sieve out the crème de la crème. However, the concerns raised are that most students do not have the adequate exposure to give them even a chance to answer these questions in their mainstream papers.That is where external Maths enrichment comes into play. Even if it may be unfair to some students, it is no longer enough to simply rely on the topics taught in the classroom. To truly excel in upper primary and PSLE Maths, students must seek out Maths enrichment on their own accord.

What can be Done to Inspire Interest in Primary Maths?

The ideal scenario would be to inspire every child to have a thirst for knowledge and a desire to understand Maths in their everyday lives. Many parents and teachers may be thinking that this is easier said than done.

One great way to spark an interest in Maths is to introduce students to applications of Maths. This is especially easy with Primary Maths as the topics taught are relatively elementary and visible in our daily lives, such as money, fractions, speed and time. By helping students to establish the connection between Maths concepts and their real-life applications, they will find it easier to internalise the ideas and apply them with their own understanding.

Making learning fun can also be a useful method to get students interested in Maths. Instead of drilling them with practice questions all the time, try introducing some Maths puzzles or games that make use of the concepts they are learning. Additionally, strategic or logical puzzles can also make for great learning tools. Not all games have to be directly related to the topics taught in Maths, as even developing basic problem-solving skills will go a long way in boosting a child’s attitude towards Maths and logical thinking.

Additionally, students should be introduced to as many different methods as possible when it comes to solving a problem. If they are forced to complete a problem in just one specific way, this greatly limits their perspective and harms their ability to think out of the box when they face future problems. However, when students are shown multiple methods of arriving at the same conclusion, they will be better able to understand that there is always more than one way to solve a problem, which is an especially crucial concept in their later education.