Helping with Maths
homework
Tips, tricks and strategies for parents
Mill Park Secondary College
Tricks, tips and strategies to helping your child with their
Maths homework.
Research has shown that the more actively parents participate in
their child’s education, the more likely that their child will be
successful at school. Parent support at home is an underrated, and
yet enormously important source of support for students as they
move through school. There are a number of things that put
parents off helping students with their homework including:
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Being worried that they aren’t ‘doing it the right way’ and that
this might get their child into trouble with their teacher,
Concern that they don’t know how to do the work and that
this doesn’t send the right message to the child,
Not liking maths themselves and not feeling confident when
working with mathematical ideas,
Lack of time – life is busy!
We hope that this booklet and tonight’s PRIME night session will
help to allay any of the above concerns that you might have,
however, it is important to recognise that there are many ways to
help and support children with their homework and the majority of
these do not require you to be a maths wiz yourself.
Be very mindful of the influence that you have on your child’s
attitude towards maths. If they know that you don’t like maths and
don’t see yourself as being good at it, chances are they will see this
as an excuse whenever they find the work difficult. The reality is
that even people who are good at maths find it difficult – that is
actually what appeals to them in many cases. All students are
capable of achieving in mathematics – there is no ‘maths gene’ –
some just might need to try a bit harder for a while than others.
Tips for parents
 Get involved - be proactive about your child's numeracy
 Be positive - avoid imparting any fear of maths onto your children.
 Encourage a regular daily time to examine and complete homework
discuss key questions or suggest resources to help with homework,
 Show your child how mathematics applies to real-life situations
 Encourage children to take part in activities that use their maths skills
like grocery shopping within a budget, cooking using a recipe
(especially if the number of serves needs to be adjusted) or measuring
materials for home building or craft activities.
 Get a list or poster of multiplication tables at home.
 Remain calm when helping with homework - play some classical music
in the background if it helps your child and take a break when it gets
frustrating for both parent and child
 Talk to the teacher to clarify teaching methods if your child says "we
don't do it this way in class". Often checking with the text book is a
great way to ensure that you are not saying anything too different to
what the student is learning at school.
 Use Maths on the weekend - if you are planning a visit to a number of
theme parks, ask your child to work out which is better value for
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money.
Discuss homework with your child in their first language (if English is
not the main language spoken at home).
Follow the progress your child is making in math. Check with your child
daily about his/her homework and aim to contact the teacher at least
once a term to check on progress. Often email is a great way to do
this, if not phone calls work well too – especially after 3.30pm.
Use household chores as opportunities for reinforcing math learning
such as cooking and scoring activities
If you don’t know the work yourself, use the text book to help work
through problems with your child. Often seeing how you work through
a problem can be an extremely valuable learning opportunity for your
child.
 At those times when words fail you and the children mutter "I still don't
get it", stay relaxed and try to keep the homework session stress free.