How to Talk to Your Child's Maths Teacher When You're Worried About Progress

You can see how your child approaches maths at home, while their teacher can spot how they work in lessons, respond to new topics and progress over time. Together, both perspectives can give us a clearer picture of your child’s maths learning. 

Parents’ evening is a natural time to talk about how your child is doing in maths, although you may have questions you want to raise sooner, particularly if you’ve noticed changes in your child’s understanding, confidence or approach to maths. 

So, when is it a good idea to get in touch and what should you ask?

Our maths instructors will answer those questions today and explain how to make sense of school report language and turn the conversation into useful next steps.

When Should You Talk to Your Child's Maths Teacher?

Talk to your child’s maths teacher when you notice a pattern that continues over time, such as a change in how confidently or independently they work with maths. 

Let’s look at some situations that may give you a reason to get in touch.

Your conversation with the teacher can also help you understand both your child’s attainment, or what they can do now and their progress, or how their learning is developing. 

Your child may be working below the expected level for their year group while making steady progress, or meeting current expectations while progressing more slowly than before. You can get a more accurate picture of their maths learning when you consider both pieces of information together. 

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What Do Maths Report Terms Mean? 

The terms on your child’s maths report do not always belong to one national grading scale. Some describe results from statutory assessments, while schools may use their own terminology to report attainment and progress during the year.

Primary schools, for example, may use phrases such as “working towards the expected standard” or “working at the expected standard” on interim or in-year reports. How the school uses those labels can depend on the year group and assessment point.

One standardised national measure comes at the end of Key Stage 2 (KS2) in Year 6 in England. The Department for Education's KS2 guidance explains that students’ raw maths test marks are converted into scaled scores from 80 to 120:

• 100 or more means the student reached or exceeded the expected standard. 

• Below 100 means the student did not reach the expected standard on that test. 

Similar wording on an interim report should therefore not automatically be interpreted as this statutory KS2 measure. If you are unsure what a label represents, ask your child’s maths teacher how the school defines it and which maths skills it refers to.

Secondary school reports may use terms such as current working grade, target grade and predicted grade. Schools might base a current working grade on recent exam scores, homework and classwork, while target grades are calculated differently.

Check the school’s reporting guidance and ask the teacher what evidence each grade is based on. 

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How Should You Approach a Maths Parents' Evening?

At parents’ evening, we want to come away with a clearer understanding of which maths skills are secure, where your child may need support and what to focus on next. 

We recommend grouping a few useful questions into three parts of the bigger picture, including what your child understands now, what their report and classroom work tell us and where to go from there. 

Let’s look at a few questions that can guide the conversation. 

What if the answer you get is still quite broad? That’s our cue to dig a little deeper. 

If you hear “they need more practice with algebra,” for example, you could ask where the difficulty shows up. Perhaps your child can solve simple equations but has trouble keeping track of negative signs when brackets are introduced. Now we have something concrete to talk about.

We can also go one step further when a skill sounds secure and ask whether your child can use it in a different type of problem. Familiar question formats can become easier with practice, so this gives us a better sense of whether they can apply the same maths beyond the examples they already know. 

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What Happens After You Talk to the Maths Teacher?

After speaking with the teacher, write down what you agreed and check how your child responds in the weeks that follow. 

You don’t need to turn your kitchen table into a second maths classroom to do that. Here are a few simple ways to follow up on what you discussed with the teacher: 

1. Write down what was agreed. Keep a short note of the areas you discussed, what the teacher plans to work on and anything you can support at home.

2. Put those next steps into practice. Give your child time to work on the areas discussed, both through the support they receive at school and anything you have agreed to reinforce at home.

3. See how things develop. Pay attention to whether your child becomes more confident or independent with the maths they are working on and whether anything still seems difficult. 

4. Reconnect with the teacher. Compare what you have seen at home with how your child is doing in lessons and discuss whether the current support is helping or needs adjusting.

This approach gives you something much more useful than a general instruction to “practise maths more.” You have a specific area to focus on, agreed actions and a way to see whether they are helping. 

Sometimes, the conversation can identify an area that needs attention without showing where the underlying maths gap begins. 

If you are still unsure which skills need attention after speaking with the classroom teacher, you may want to discuss the issue further with the school’s maths lead or consider an independent assessment.

More structured diagnostic tools use carefully selected questions and techniques to pinpoint the skills a student has mastered and where gaps remain.

For families considering additional, targeted support, this is how we begin every student’s journey at Mathnasium, with a diagnostic assessment that maps out their individual learning needs.

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At Mathnasium, we go far beyond traditional tutoring to help children understand and develop a love for maths.

How Mathnasium Supports Every Child's Maths Progress

Mathnasium is a maths-only learning centre helping students of all skill levels excel in maths. 

Whether students are building foundational skills, working at their current year level or ready for greater challenge, we support their maths progress with instruction that meets their individual needs.

We do this through the Mathnasium Method™, our proprietary teaching approach designed to build maths mastery through deep understanding. Our approach includes:

• Assessment and personalised learning plans. Every student begins their Mathnasium journey with a diagnostic assessment that identifies their current skills, strengths and knowledge gaps. We use those insights to create a personalised learning plan around their individual needs and goals.

• Teaching for understanding. Our specially trained instructors use mental, verbal, visual, tactile and written techniques. Different ways of presenting a concept give students more than one path to understanding, whether they benefit from visual tools, hands-on activities or verbal explanations. 

• Face-to-face instruction. We deliver instruction face-to-face in a caring and fun group environment, where each child follows their own personalised learning plan at the pace that's right for them, both in-centre and online.

• Confidence and engagement. We use games and earned rewards to encourage students to participate actively and engage with maths instead of simply listening to a lesson. They build confidence alongside fluency and many develop a more positive relationship with maths as they progress. 

The impact extends beyond the classroom:

• 94% of parents report an improvement in their child's maths skills and understanding

• 93% of parents report their child's improved attitude towards maths after attending Mathnasium

• 90% of students saw an improvement in their school grades

With over 1,250 centres worldwide, including over 40 across the UK, there is likely a Mathnasium centre near you.

Families across Brook Green, West Kensington, Brackenbury Village, Barons Court, Shepherd's Bush, Askew Village and Ravenscourt Park trust Mathnasium of Hammersmith to help their children build lasting maths confidence.

If a conversation with the teacher has highlighted a specific gap, or if your child is ready to make progress with any maths concept, our team is ready to help.

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