Is your maths homeschooling curriculum broken?

Maths is a notoriously difficult subject to manage for homeschooling families. Those who are doing it long-term, and find themselves falling behind, have no need to panic. They have time to reflect, regroup and recoup. In contrast, anyone who is short-term homeschooling will need to react pronto. Short-term implies the student will rejoin mainstream schooling within the next six to 12 months. For them, time is of the essence - if they get it wrong the consequences can be far-reaching.

Imagine yourself now as a parent preparing to take their child out of mainstream school up until the start of the following year. You are probably more likely to search “homeschooling” as opposed to “short-term homeschooling”. This minor difference has a huge impact on search engine results.

Long-term vs. Short-Term Homeschooling

Much of what we read on social media is written by ‘long-termers’. For them, ‘short-term’ would be somewhat inconsequential. Still, their experiences and opinions make for fascinating reading, and the high quality of the information they share is impressive. Their focus is on providing first-rate academic education, concurrently ensuring they don’t overlook the social and emotional wellbeing of their children. No-one can accuse them of sleeping on the job! They are awesome at what they do and, evidently, homeschoolers are normal people after all!

Short-term homeschoolers, broadly speaking, would confer with the recommendations of long-termers. At the same time, they will be left with a nagging feeling there are additional considerations to make, albeit they can’t quite put their finger on exactly what. They are right.

Ok. Fast forward to the time when you actually take the plunge. The first few weeks will pass unremarkably, plus or minus a few minor teething troubles. If you are one of the 'fortunates' your luck may hold out and you will sail through the whole experience effortlessly.

As for the others, at some point those issues you couldn't put your finger on will make an entrance. Bad luck, my friend. It’s all in the timing. Had you anticipated them early on you could have prepared. Now that you are already up and running, your hands are tied. At all costs you want to avoid the agony of having an unhappy, unmotivated child on your hands. What are these issues exactly?

Modality of study

An example of a typical short-term homeschooling family is one where mum and dad are both busy young professionals. They are more likely to opt for self-study, or self-paced or online courses because these modalities offer greater freedom. None of them are bad per se so it is unlikely they would have been flagged at the research stage.

You see, long-termers (who write much of the content) are often more hands on and have a larger support network. This enables them to safely ride out periods of slow progress, confident they will experience near-complete recovery further down the line. Time is on their side.

In contrast, take a short-term homeschooler on a self-paced maths course. The flexibilities and freedom offered by self-paced study comes at a price. Without the discipline of deadlines a family can slide rapidly down a slippery slope - fast and furious springs to mind!

In the absence of time constraints a student weak in maths will likely keep pushing the topics they don’t understand backwards. Less and less material is covered week on week and before they know it, even their foundational knowledge has crashed and burned. Such is the ‘learning loss’ phenomenon.

Online courses have their flaws too. Course authors will utilise videos, worksheets and textbooks together with manipulatives. The aim is to engage the student more fully. For the student to navigate themselves around all of this content is no mean feat, let me tell you! One of my past students was unaware he was missing a whole textbook. No wonder they felt lost.

Lack of Organisational Skills

Students need to be supremely organised at home in order to manage all of the physical and software elements of a course. It is hard enough at the beginning when energy levels are high. Imagine what happens when the student starts to lose interest.

The course creator will have you believe their system has taken all of the guesswork out of this process, but that is not always the case. All too often, virtual files and folders are like black boxes and students simply can’t remember what is inside them. Admittedly, lack of organisational skills affects all students to some extent. However, those who are home alone have to supervise themselves and it takes a long time for some to develop those skills.

In maths, it is essential that questions and answers that are tackled during lessons are kept safe and are easily accessible. They make the best source of revision material for tests and exams. We are not surprised to find maths questions inside one book or file, and their written answers in another and never the twain shall meet!

So, when students need to revise, rather than match questions to answers they choose to start from scratch and look for new questions! I am constantly being asked if I have any questions on a given topic. When I pull up the questions we have already worked on, they recognise them and want new ones. My response is “Let’s see whether we can still answer them.” You can guess the result. By the way, even those question sheets that are designed to be written on have to be printed off and stored safely. Some children don’t like printing things off at all.

Let’s not forget registration admin. Some websites are multi-layered so navigation around the site can be tricky. If the pandemic taught us anything it was that taking advice over the phone has patchy success. If mum and dad are not home the children will find it even patchier. (Is that a proper word?)

Personal Circumstances

In some cases, there may be nothing disadvantageous about the course itself. It an be the personal circumstances of the family that hinder progress. e.g. families who are relocating abroad. No matter how much they plan, events can overtake them, and their child may end up doing no schooling at all for literally weeks. The stress of whatever caused this hiatus has likely affected the whole family so everyone is drained and feeding off each other's negative energies.

Unfortunately, the clock will continue ticking regardless. It can take some time to get maths lessons up and running again. The barrier that exists for maths is harder to overcome than the other subjects. Once you find you don’t understand one or two concepts you will spiral down into not understanding more and more. Hardly motivating.

Outsourcing to a Responsible Person

Faced with the issues highlighted here, your initial reaction may be to hire a teaching assistant. Theoretically maths homeschooling courses can be supervised by any reasonably intelligent, enthusiastic parent, so why not an ‘educated’ nanny type or young graduate. However, not all teaching assistants are created equal. They may be brilliant in some subjects and not in others.

Maths is not a subject you can fake. If you unwittingly choose a teaching assistant who is mathematically challenged, and a course that has poor administration, that will be a double whammy. Crucially, your child will not be able to learn. Maybe the teaching assistant only realised just how inadequate they were at teaching maths since working with you and your child. What if they soldier on, in an attempt to learn on the job and avoid letting you down? All other things being equal, they might do that. There is a very slim chance of success in that case.

In-house Tutor Options

Many online courses offer the option to purchase access to an in-house tutor, but in reality students are reluctant to call them. They will ask for help once or twice and then if they still don’t understand they will frequently just stop asking. I am always surprised at the number of people I have taught who had an in-house tutor and never called them. Further, not all in-house tutors will chase children who fail to hand in work. The onus is on the student to call the tutor it seems. I don’t say it is a reflection on the in-house tutors, it is only an observation.

Student push on even when they do not understand material

So, a student can get caught in a catch-22 situation. On one hand they can see they have a mountain of work in front of them - because the whole syllabus is itemised in full. That never-ending list causes them to feel a pressure to push through it A.S.A.P.

On the other, as we saw earlier, the further behind they fall the harder it is to catch up, and the more likely they are to try to hide it from you. Again, they don’t see it as dishonest, they believe they will catch up at some point and no-one will be any the wiser. They do not realise mathematical knowledge is cumulative and that it is more likely they will grind to a halt. This compounding effect is disastrous.

Rushing through maths lessons when you are trying to learn alone guarantees you will make mistakes, probably without realising, too. A diligent student will be influenced by the idea that ‘practice makes perfect’. Unfortunately, maths teachers will tell you that practise does not make perfect. Rather, ‘practice makes permanent’. Any wrong thinking that becomes freely accepted by the student will be incredibly difficult to dislodge. Mathematical ideas are so closely interwoven that when we try to remove one misconception of the connecting ideas come crashing down around us.

Some children hate, hate, hate to lose at electronic games and they see online practice tests in the same light. I have seen children cry before (bless them) because they were not allowed to cancel a times-tables game before it’s natural end. They said it won’t be any good because their score will not be 100%. That is a topic for another day …

The upshot is that practice material the organisation provides is sometimes relegated to the category of ‘avoid at all costs’ by competitive students. If it is not clear whether that practice will count towards their overall grade they are even more likely to steer clear.

Being Accepted Back into School can be Problematic

Generally parents put a lot of effort into doing the best for their children, however much their circumstances change along the way. By now you will see what a minefield short-term homeschooling can be. That said, it can still be of tremendous value. It only needs managing well.

Your child simply must cover enough material throughout their maths homeschooling period that they can do justice to tests and entrance exams prior to re-entry. If they perform poorly they may be kept down a year. Even if they are not kept down, they will have a very hard time in school maths lessons if they have effectively had a few months off.

It is with good reason that maths is taught in school almost daily. Students who are in school benefitting from daily lessons still forget some topics (almost in their entirety) but they will recall it with greater ease. Classroom teachers, do a great job often, so I don’t want to disrespect them. Many put their heart and soul into their work. Still it will be a heavy task for them to lift your child out of the hole they fell in at home if the hole is too deep. Those who have done very little maths at home can be disadvantaged permanently.

An Experienced Tutor can Reverse the Learning Loss

So, whether you are desperate for your child to pass a private school entrance exam or just wanting to minimise their suffering in maths lessons at school, you need to stay on top at all times. If only you had been aware of these pitfalls at the start life would have been so much easier.

Each child is an individual and an experienced tutor can tailor a maths course around them in real time, taking out the guess-work and ensuring success. Honestly, tutoring on a one-to-one basis, your child would have made more progress at home, not less.

If you recognise yourself in any of these scenarios, please do get in touch. Just book a free consultation with me by completing the form. It will be a very informal chat and may help you take action sooner rather than later!