Stuckonhomework.com

[EvilTwins]

Anyone else heard of it or have any experience of it? I heard the woman who started it talking on radio 2 the other day and it made me really irritated. They're charging a yearly subscription for access to the site, which currently only covers maths. It's got video clips on it, I think. The reason it irritated me though was that no one involved in setting it up has anything to do with education, and she kept saying something along the lines of "we know that the most important thing to make sure that children have a good education is access to good teachers" which, IMO is a bit of an over-simplification.

Anyway, it annoyed me, as a teacher, and I was interested in what other people think.

[Liquidpea]

I think it's a good idea & £1.40 per week seems reasonable. I currently pay £25 per week maths tuition for GCSE maths. Before that I helped if he was stuck & if I needed a quick refresh I looked for an explanation on google first. My ds has not been given a text book by the school. Instead he must use a CD in the back of a question book (no answers) & you can only read it on the screen as it will not allow you to print the pages. I work long full time hours so not as available to help as before. He could ask his teacher but they do not seem to have enough free time between lessons to do this. There are evening help sessions run by the school but these are aimed at those needing to go from a D to a C. My ds is now predicted A* & achieving this grade in his mocks due to the extra hour a week he puts in.

[scaryteacher]

A teacher may be teaching 5 lessons a day so no free time between lessons, but there is no reason they couldn't help at lunch, or even after school if not teaching a twilight lesson.

[isgrassgreener]

There was a piece in the News Review section of the Sunday Times yesterday about this website, it has been set up by 2 mothers who found they were unable to help their children with maths, because the methods of teaching have changed.

It is now financed (47% share) by the X head of Tescos.

They said it includes films of a teacher explaining maths problems and covers the whole GCSE course, not sure if it covers A level as well.

They hope to do the same for science by the end of the year.

Not sure what I think about it but, as Liquidpea said if it works for you £1.40 a week is quite good.

My sons school uses an on-line system called My Maths, would be interested to see how different it is, so will have a look at the website.

[EvilTwins]

My main issue with it, other than the fact that it has been set up by people with no experience of educating schoolchildren, is that there is no acknowledgment of the fact that children learn in different ways. If your child doesn't understand their own maths teacher, then there is no guarantee that watching a video clip of a different person presenting the material to them is going to make a jot of difference. I found the arrogance of the woman on Radio 2 (one of the mothers mentioned by isgrass) incredible - she genuinely thought that she'd found the answer - as long as teaching is done by someone she considers to be good (and presumably the person employed to present the GCSE Maths curriculum (not sure which board) is someone she thinks is good) then that's it, problem solved.

I don't know any teachers who would refuse to spend time explaining something to a child until they have understood.

[spangle123]

Looks as though there must have been plenty of interest as £1.40 a week no longer available, minimum is £3.99 for 48 hrs

[mumonhomework]

Hi, I'm the co-founder of www.stuckonhomework.com who you heard on Radio 2. I've read your posts and although I'm not a teacher we spent a year developing the idea with teachers, Head teachers, educational professionals and organisations like Becta and the QDCA, all of whom were extremely positive and said there was real value in a home based video resource like this. We have worked with 4 maths teachers the whole way through, using their experience and feedback to develop and build the site. We also focus grouped different maths teachers with GCSE pupils in 3 UK schools and the pupils chose our teacher, Rebecca Johnson. Re price points, we have 3 offers at the moment - £73 gives 15 month access to the site up to the June 2012 GCSE's ( less than £1.20 a week ), our Revision Special at £29.99 is for pupils sitting their maths GCSE this June and there is a Try Stuck option available at £3.99 for 48 hours. I'm really happy to answer any questions about the site or about us, so feel free to ask me anything!