Dad tries to help six-year-old with maths homework and question leaves him dumbfounded

A dad left baffled by his six-year-old's homework has been asking strangers for their help to solve it so the child doesn't hand it in blank. The man hastaken to social media to seek answers to the "confusing" maths problem after spending a good while trying to figure it out himself.

Written below the heading 'Real world maths', the question reads: "Use pieces of pasta, buttons or other small objcts you can find at home. "Make each number on the ten frames in a different way." The question then presents students with two, 2x5 grids with the numbers 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 displayed above it.

It then asks, 'How did you count them?'. Following this, it prompts the child to, "ask an adult how many there are", before asking, 'How did the adult count them?'

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But this isn't the only question tripping them up as the one below presents the student with two boxes and explains how each box has some pens.

It reads: "There are 10 pens in total. How many could be in each box?" Providing them with a helpful hint, it urges them to "use number bonds to help" work it out.

Commenting on the maths homework, one user said: "This looks like White Rose Maths, which I personally have a love-hate relationship with.

"It’s a great classroom resource, and I fully agree with its philosophy, but it is very wordy and needs an awful lot of explanation and modelling before most children can attempt the work independently.

"I personally wouldn’t have given this as homework, as the child likely couldn’t read it, and one shouldn’t assume that a parent can adequately explain it.

"The level of challenge is absolutely appropriate, however, and isn’t asking anything out of the ordinary.

Another user added: "i have so much (more) respect for teachers after doing homework with my niece. It’s so hard to explain maths to someone who has no concept of maths.

"I’m frustrated because she doesn’t understand, she’s frustrated because I don’t understand what she doesn’t understand.

"And it doesn’t help that the way they learn has changed since I was a child! Wtf are “number bonds”!? Back in my day they just asked which two numbers make 10."

A third user said: "There’s 20 boxes there on the page, 10 on the left and 10 on the right.

"Imagine you’ve got Tic Tacs to fix in each box. Make the number 11. You’ve got all 10 boxes on the left filled and 1 on the right.

"A child may count individually, 1, 2, 3 etc. An adult may know it’s in groups of 10 so go 10 + 1 or that each row on the left so is 5, 10 and then 1 on the right hand side. That’s it. No tricks."

Answer to the pen problem

Possible combinations of pens in the two boxes include:

• 0 pens in box 1 and 10 pens in box 2

• 1 pen in box 1 and 9 pens in box 2

• 2 pens in box 1 and 8 pens in box 2

• 3 pens in box 1 and 7 pens in box 2

• 4 pens in box 1 and 6 pens in box 2

• 5 pens in box 1 and 5 pens in box 2

• 6 pens in box 1 and 4 pens in box 2

• 7 pens in box 1 and 3 pens in box 2

• 8 pens in box 1 and 2 pens in box 2

• 9 pens in box 1 and 1 pen in box 2

• 10 pens in box 1 and 0 pens in box 2