I don’t believe in religion but I believe this was what god meant when he talked about the antichrist. A fallen angel, once at the highest of heights, O’ Hegarty maths may we see your vibrant light once more. But it was tortured and maimed into a ghastly vile unholy cancer that inhabits
The Earth like a virus. Our days must truly be near their end if this is what we are holding up as a breakthrough in learning.
JJ
Jim J.
This genuinely ruined maths for me
I was honestly enjoying maths for the first couple of years in secondary school, then early year 9 they introduced sparx maths. It is genuinely horrific mainly down to the 100% completion policy which allows absolutely no wiggle room for mistakes or areas where you could improve. You don’t get 100%? Oh well have fun coming back for an hour. Bookwork checks are also ridiculous, actually forcing you to have an exercise book with you to write the answers in makes it feel less like revision and more like an utter chore. The videos also barely help, with the teacher always sounding dry and the explanations being difficult to follow. Sparx maths itself feels like a punishment, it feels like it was made for the teacher’s convenience rather than the student’s future. It’s just a dry and boring joke of a homework assignment that has nothing good going for it. Get rid of bookwork checks, they don’t do anything and are just irritating and make the support actually engaging and useful.
NP
Nxlss P.
Terrible for learning, the only thing it claims to be good at.
Hilariously Bad
Yes, sparx maths. The math app.
Going onto sparx math feels like entering a room where someone died before. Whoever designed this app must hate children because it's so badly designed to the point that it is actively against learning. Get a question wrong 3 times in a row? Do it again. It doesn't matter how close you were to finishing it. It gives no feedback on where you went wrong, and you have to figure it out yourself.
The "videos" are a bunch of nonsense, you'll be on a, lets say, question about the area of a square. If you're confused and want to watch a video, it'll start talking about calculating the area of a trapezium.
The teachers see everything, at least for me, a worry about doing homework too slowly or too quickly could give teachers the wrong impression. Sparx tracks literally everything, from the time spent on each question, how many times you got it wrong, if you watched the video. Just unnecessary information put to display. I understand correct to incorrect ratio is important for figuring out what to consolidate later on. However its' like as soon as you're on Sparx, you feel like your every move is being tracked and recorded. Did I mention it literally tracks you from the moment you open the homework. That's not gentle progress checking, its total surveillance.
Every now and again, it asks for the answer for any question that was previously answered. Expecting an already excruciating half an hour to be dragged even longer by writing each question and answer in a physical book. Credit where credit is due, the old system of making it make you redo the question was the worst. And they made it into, guess what, another traceable stat for teachers to see! Who would've guessed?
Kids who have perfect behavior avoid using this app because they quite literally can't stand it. I've seen many cases when people who have never skipped a piece of homework in their lives start coming with half-off excuses on why they opened it and never did a question. They look at it, try a bit, and give up because of its horrible attitude to learning.
It needs to be more like sparx science, which is still pretty bad, but there's an "I don't know button" for those who genuinely don't know, and it will trigger a step by step guide which I believe is actually helpful. A lot more needs to change before it comes good enough to be as widely used as it is now.
FI
Finnley
Absolutely torture
Absolutely terrible, forces my whole school to do it and if we don’t they send a email every week to our parents
DL
Doll Lynne D.
100%
Horrible. Absolutely horrible. First, the 100% completion trap: on Sparx Maths, it is programmed to put your homework down as 'incomplete' unless you have completed all questions correctly. No 'partial credit' no '90% complete'. If you've gotten 9/10 questions right, in the view of Sparx Math that means absolutely nothing. The bookwork itself is also just really badly programmed: The 'Bookwork' that comes up at randomized times during the time you are doing your homework gives no support whatsoever. It has no purpose other than to make kids feel bad they couldn't remember an answer. IXL Math and IReady in America are already brutal in their own ways but really any other Sparxs platform has its own unique way to make kids cry.
AD
Austin Del T.
DELETE SPARX
worlds worst maths learning app, bookwork checks are a waste of time which nobody (including me) does
SU
- SubPixlpro -.
They turned a maths app into a money grinder!
So listen up.All sparx Maths is (yes, sparx without a capital letter is meaningful), is a MONEY GRINDER for teacher to pay for. This.Needs.To.Change.
BO
bob
its makes my week stressful
its makes my week stressful and math even worst its terrible