How do I know if my child is behind in maths?

School reports are written to be reassuring, and a child who is quietly struggling can go a year without anything being said. Here is how to check for yourself, in about twenty minutes, before you pay anybody.

The signs that actually mean something

• Homework takes much longer than it should. Not occasionally. Every week, on work the class is expected to finish in twenty minutes.
• They can get it right and not explain it. A right answer with no method behind it is a copied method, and it will fail on the next question.
• They still count on their fingers past Grade 3. For small sums. This one points straight at number bonds.
• They say they are bad at maths. Children do not say this about things they are merely finding hard. They say it about things they have decided about.
• Class marks are fine and exam marks are not. This usually means the method is memorised rather than understood.

What is usually behind it

Almost every child we assess is missing one of four things, and none of them are from this year's work.

• Number bonds. Pairs that make ten, instantly. Without them every sum is slow and every slow sum is an error waiting.
• Times tables. Recall, not working out. Division, fractions and algebra all assume these.
• Place value. What the digits actually mean. Decimals fall apart without it.
• Fractions. The commonest place for a child to stop following, and it is around Grade 4.

The twenty-minute check you can do tonight

• Ask ten random times tables facts, out of order. Anything slower than three seconds is not recall.
• Ask what the 7 means in 4,703.
• Ask which is bigger, 2/3 or 3/5, and how they know.
• Give them a word problem and ask what the question is asking before they work it out.

Where it falls apart is where to start. That is also exactly what a trial lesson is for, if you would rather somebody else did it.

When the answer is not a tutor

• If this started suddenly, in one term, check what changed — a teacher, a move, their eyes. A tutor will not fix any of those.
• If they are fine in maths and hate the homework, the problem is the homework.
• If they are a year or more behind across every subject, ask the school for an assessment first. Tutoring is not the right first step.