Is maths making your child miserable?

  • Does your child get easily mixed up when they are do maths?

  • Are they struggling to learn their times tables and number facts?

  • Does your child still count on their fingers?

  • What is your current plan to help them? (Find out how I helped my daughter here)

  • What will happen if nothing changes?

    Rewrite their future today

4 Reasons your child is struggling with maths and how to solve them

Download my free PDF to help you work out your next step in ending your child’s struggle with maths

  • Callum has been extraordinary in helping my daughter. His teaching approach is effective and his resources are outstanding. I am grateful for his support and highly recommend him.

    LF

  • Saima is super excited to have you teach her. You are a brilliant teacher. I really appreciate it.

    MN - Parent of Year 5 child

  • You are a fantastic teacher that explains brilliantly. You genuinely teach how to do the maths.

    DC

  • Callum is extremely understanding. My daughter really struggled with maths and he has worked on her weaknesses and developed them into strengths.

    NH - Parent of Year 4 child

  • The children love having you teach them. They are excited to see you.

    NN - Parent of Year 2 and Year 5 children

  • Callum is very helpful and explains maths very well.

    FM - Year 4 child

There is a different way of solving maths problems

  • No times tables

  • No number facts

  • No panic or mental disorganisation

Scaffolding causing overload

Many teachers will give children ‘scaffolds’ to support their calculations but it simply adds more steps for your child to deal when their working memory is already overloaded.

The almost ubiquitous abstract number lines encourage children to count in ones which means by the time they are in Year 2 and are doing:

56 + 37 = ___ or 62 - 28 = ___

the task is insurmountable. The child is then told to partition the smaller number, count forwards or backwards the tens, then the ones. Try it yourself and then imagine your child doing it…

My pictorial methods eliminate the need to count backwards. To solve these two problems, your child would not need to count higher than 13.

Other tutors may fail because it is simply more of the same

Some mistakes children make at first glance seem inexplicable. Examples might be:

  • Counting 97, 98, 99, 20. (99 sounds like 19)

  • 100 - 73 = 37 (trying to use number bond knowledge)

  • 19 - 5 = 15 (counting backwards using a number line and being out by one)

These problems wont be solved using more number lines, songs or learning number facts because the problem is the numbers are ‘abstract’. This is a technical but important point that is sadly missed by many teachers.

If you showed a picture of a dog to any person, they would likely understand what it is because the picture has intrinsic meaning. The word ‘dog’ doesn’t have any meaning to a person who cannot read and if the word is spoken, it has no meaning to a person who cannot speak English. This is because the words and the sounds are abstract and therefore have to be deciphered.

In maths, while many children can effortlessly decipher the value of numbers from sounds and abstract digits, it is likely, if your child is struggling, they are struggling to do this.

My pictorial methods remove the needless deciphering step completely. Watch the change in your child when they realise they understand the maths they are looking at.

Try the week long Core Concepts in Maths course with your child today

£20

  • 5 Lessons embedding two key concepts in maths:

    • Identifying the number of tens and ones in two digit numbers

    • How to use the equals sign correctly by matching both sides

    • Reading the number sentence aloud.

    • Drawing pictorial representations of the numbers.

    • Breaking the problem down in to small but repetitive steps

    • Your child matching the values both sides of the equals sign.

    • Five 5-minute videos designed to be watched and rewatched to embed simple but essential mathematical concepts

    • Five custom worksheets + associated quizzes

    • Five videos showing modelled answers

12 week Clear Picture Maths Gold Programme Online Course

+ Zoom & 1-2-1 Support

Multiplication, Division, Addition & Subtraction

£599

    • This 12 week course has 4 modules on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division + the short core concepts in maths course.

    • It is aimed at students in aged 6-11 who are struggling with arithmetic.

    • It begins at a Year 1 standard and ends at a Year 4 standard.

    • Reading the number sentence aloud.

    • Drawing pictorial representations of the numbers.

    • Breaking the problem down in to small but repetitive steps

    • Your child matching the values both sides of the equals sign.

    • 45 five-minute videos designed to be watched and rewatched to embed simple but essential mathematical concepts

    • 45 custom worksheets + associated quizzes

    • 45 videos showing modelled answers

    Additionally for the Gold Programme

    • Up to two Zoom live lessons a week

    • 1-2-1 bespoke feedback

12 week Clear Picture Maths online course

£199

    • This 12 week course has 4 modules on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division + the short core concepts in maths course.

    • It is aimed at students in aged 6-11 who are struggling with arithmetic.

    • It begins at a Year 1 standard and ends at a Year 4 standard.

    • Reading the number sentence aloud.

    • Drawing pictorial representations of the numbers.

    • Breaking the problem down in to small but repetitive steps

    • Your child matching the values both sides of the equals sign.

    • 45 five-minute videos designed to be watched and rewatched to embed simple but essential mathematical concepts

    • 45 custom worksheets + associated quizzes

    • 45 videos showing modelled answers