Compulsory Maths till you’re 18.

Failed o level maths twice . Finally with a tutor got through while happily doing 3 A levels. It doesn’t work for everyone not sure what he means, if you’re doing other a levels you must do a level maths ( absolute no no for me) or just some maths ?

Sounds like one of those “I must come up with something new” things.

Yes, vegansrock, I’d forgotten about that.
At my last secondary school, it was the job of the Business Studies lot

Maths teachers are so thin on the ground these days that they wouldn’t have the staff to teach it, Could get the PE teachers to do it like they are doing currently I suppose.

I think Sunak is talking about a bacalaureat style exam with fewer subjects at GCSE and English and Maths continued until 18. I don't disagree with that, but there is a desperate shortage of Maths teachers and there are certainly not the resources for wholesale curriculum change.

FannyCornforth

The way things are, a much better plan would be to put the kids on a St John’s Ambulance course

Yes indeed!

By all means make sure that we all have basic numeracy, but they’re is no need for advanced maths for the vast majority of us. Those that enter a career than needs advanced calculation, electronics, engineering, medicine need the extra training but even they do not use calculation often, they push a button on a computer.

Or perhaps we could bring back National Service; but instead of it being in the military, it would be NHS based

The way things are, a much better plan would be to put the kids on a St John’s Ambulance course

I did it until I was 18 ,mainly because ,at that time, you didn’t have to do a lot of revision and it was a fairly easy ride. I had no intention of continuing with it at uni. I wasn’t the best at it but I did well in my exams. I also had a good coach, my future husband who at that time was doing a PhD in engineering. A lot depends on how it is taught and unfortunately those who follow maths as a study are not likely to end up as teachers these days because they can earn so much in other fields.

I was very ill in my early teens and missed out on a chunk of schooling. I never caught up with maths so might have taken up the opportunity to carry on. I suppose as I had left school and gone to art school that would have been at evening classes.

I would have simply refused to do it.
I refused to do PE in the last year of school, so I do have form!

I have dyscalculia.
It took all my of efforts (and that if my parents and my wonderful maths teacher, who also privately tutored me) to scrape a C in my second attempt.

I was academically bright in other areas, so it probably would have caused huge problems for my HE and FE.

I wonder how maths teachers feel about having a class full of reluctant, stroppy (and, as would have been in my case - totally incapable) 17 and 18 year old students?

The whole thing is a ridiculous nightmare.
It’s a good job that it won’t actually happen! 😃

It would depend what it meant. If it meant resitting GCSE until you pass, then yes, I’d be ok with that, as level 2 is very basic; but insisting everyone takes A level maths seems more than a little pointless. Also, would there be similar requirements to study English? I would apply the same thinking to that, if so. Everyone should be at least at level 2 before leaving school, but there is a big gap to get to A level. There has to be more nuance than that I think.

Having said that, I don’t have an O level in maths, and I have 3 degrees, two of which are postgraduate, one of those requiring the use of statistics in the dissertation. It’s by no means essential.