Advice for pseudo-grinds

dave_eire

Apologies for the cross post, I only noticed this section after I posted in the Maths forum - mods: feel free to move/ lock whichever post is considered in the wrong forum.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055163273

Thanks

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Hi guys,

Looking for a bit of advice.

A cousin of mine has just completed him junior cert and gone into 4th year. he has been having trouble with the Maths curriculum specifically trig and algebra, and I have offered to help him catch up over this year so he is in better shape for starting 5th year. He took pass maths, and I would like to be able to go over the course with him to ensure that he has a proper understanding of this before getting completely lost in 5th year. While I understand that getting professional grinds from someone who is familiar with the curriculum would be better, he is a shy lads and gets very embarrassed around other people when he doesn’t know what is going on.

I am a software developer and studied maths in college, so I have a good grasp of the subject, but it has been 12 years since I sat the leaving and not only have I forgotten what topics were covered, I believe the curriculum has recently been changed.

I was wondering if anyone know are there any books out there aimed at say parents trying to help their kids which I could buy, or any other resources which might help me. If such resources do not exist, what would you recommend I do? Just get a copy of his school books and go through them and then once I am happy I understand the topics, sit down and go through them with him.

Any advice or pointers will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks a lot,

DaveH.

spurious

Get a book that covers the JC course and get a set of old exam papers. You should be able to get the syllabus online too to check if there are any optional sections of the course.

Make sure for each section that he clearly understands the worked example and do the first couple of test questions along with him until you are sure he is managing it on his own.

Gradually introduce exam questions (possibly without telling him they are exam questions as this can discourage a struggling learner), when he completes the question, then tell him it was from such and such a year's exam and he would have got full marks on it (etc.). So much to do with Maths is about confidence.

You may have to do a fair bit of repetition and revision as you go along.

If you would like a Maths teacher to have a look at a completed paper of his at some stage, PM me and I'm sure one of my colleagues will have a look at it for him. I wish a lot of the kids I teach had a cousin like you.

dave_eire

Thanks a lot for the advice spurious.

I know that this is jumping the gun a little, but do you think that we should use this year just to make sure that he is up to spped with the syllabus so far, or so we plan to do prep for the leaving cert?

Also, he took pass math for the junior cert, so my thought was to try and get him comfortable with that course and then move on to the JC honours course and see how that goes, do you know off the top of your head if the honours is substantially different/ harder than the pass course?

Thanks,

D

spurious

From what I know, (and I'm not a Maths teacher - I'm speaking as a Year Head who has had to act on requests to move between levels) the Higher Level JC course covers more or less the Ordinary Level LC course.

I would get him comfortable with the JC OL course first. A great deal of any educational and exam success is down to confidence. If he feels he has a really good grasp of the basics of the OL JC course he will be less likely to lose heart when meeting more difficult things at LC. As a matter of interest, what grade did he get in OL JC?

dave_eire

Thanks again.

He got a C in OL, which is not a bad result, but talking to him recently, his confidence around the subject is very low.

Thanks for all your advice.

D