Confidence in the subject

Lack of confidence can undermine a pupils performance. My third daughter felt that she was poor at maths even though her attainment was perfectly respectable. Because of this she did not try as hard as she might have, she tended to give up rather than persevere through to success. We boosted her confidence by using the Sands-Daniels musical multiplication tapes. We played these to her in the car (where she had nothing else to do to distract her) whenever we were driving her around. I required her to sing along with them, and rewarded her at the end with a sweet if she did so. This taught her her times tables and put her ahead of the rest of the class in maths. This had a dramatic effect on her performance even beyond the narrow confines of multiplication calculations. She felt that she was a leader, that this was a subject she could do well at, and that it was worth her while to work at maths. Her confidence soared and it became one of her best subjects. At school learning is a social activity, but unfortunately the society in which schoolchildren exist can be savage. The social pressure experienced by children can undermine their ability to learn. This means that small difficulties can completely undermine a child’s ability to succeed. We at Puppet Maths wish to address those small difficulties and help children overcome them. We teach them maths in a child friendly way, helping them to understand the concepts and enabling them to perform calculations successfully.