Reading Time
3 min read
Written By
Alyx JordanFounder, Ivy MathsIn this article
Most students who try to build a study routine start too big. Two hours every evening sounds good on Sunday night and has usually gone by Wednesday. For maths, a routine that lasts is short and happens on most days.
1. Little and often works better for maths
Maths skills fade when they aren't used. A method you were confident with in September can be shaky by December if it hasn't come up since. Short, regular practice brings topics back before they've gone completely, which is far less work than relearning them later.
This is spaced practice, one of the best-supported findings in research on learning. Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) rated it among the most useful study techniques across a wide range of ages and subjects.
2. Mix your topics
Practising one topic at a time feels easier, because every question uses the same method. In an exam, though, the hard part is often working out which method a question needs, and a page of twenty identical questions never asks you to do that.
Mixing topics within a session is called interleaving. In a study by Rohrer and Taylor (2007), students who practised mixed maths problems scored much higher on a test a week later than students who practised the same problems grouped by type, even though mixed practice felt harder at the time.
An easy way to do this is to answer a few questions on this week's class topic and a few on something from a month or more ago in every session.
3. Attach the routine to something you already do
Routines stick when they have a fixed starting point. "After school" is vague, whereas "straight after tea, before any screens" is a moment you'll meet every day. Pick a point that's already part of your evening and put maths directly after it.
4. How much is enough
There's no official figure for how long students should practise maths at home, and schools set different amounts of homework. These amounts are a starting point most students can keep up.
| Year group | Session length | Sessions a week |
|---|---|---|
| Years 3 to 6 | 10 to 15 minutes | 4 or 5 |
| Years 7 to 9 | 15 to 20 minutes | 4 or 5 |
| Years 10 and 11 | 20 to 30 minutes | 5, more before exams |
Homework counts. On a night with maths homework, the homework is the session.
5. Two example weeks
Year 7
| Day | Session |
|---|---|
| Monday | 15 min: 6 questions on this week's class topic (negative numbers), 3 on place value |
| Tuesday | Maths homework |
| Wednesday | 15 min mixed: 3 on negative numbers, 3 on fractions, 3 on rounding |
| Thursday | Rest |
| Friday | 15 min: times tables to 12 × 12, then 4 area questions |
| Weekend | 10 min: redo the week's starred questions |
Year 11
| Day | Session |
|---|---|
| Monday | 25 min: this week's class topic (quadratic inequalities), then 4 mixed earlier questions |
| Tuesday | Maths homework |
| Wednesday | 25 min: 8 mixed questions across number, algebra and geometry, no notes |
| Thursday | 25 min: one topic from your weakest list |
| Friday | Rest |
| Saturday | 30 min: 15 past paper questions, timed |
| Sunday | 10 min: update your mistakes page |
6. Look back at the week, briefly
Once a week, spend ten minutes looking back. Check which questions you starred or got wrong, and whether you missed sessions and why. Adjust the next week instead of starting over from scratch.
7. Make the daily session the easy part
The hardest part of any routine is deciding what to do each day. Ivy Maths Daily Maths Practice gives you a ready-made set of questions for the day, and on an Ivy Membership parents can follow progress from the Parent Dashboard. Choose your starting point in the evening, then do today's Daily Maths Practice straight after it for the next five days.