Compulsory Maths till you’re 18.

I somehow have a picture of the cabinet sitting round the table discussing what they haven't already screwed up and had to abandon.And some bright spark shouting "Education"! and another adding "Maths!"

You know what I think Mollygo. I'd like everybody to understand the mathematical terminology which comes up in everyday life. I'd like people to understand that when a newspaper article states that (for example) average nurses' pay is £xxx, the mean is skewed by people at the top and doesn't mean that all nurses earn £xxx. I'd also like everybody to understand the meaning of words like "exponential" ... that's for starters. Living on £334.91 a month might be quite a useful skill too.

However, my guess is that as this seems to be Sunak's baby, he wants people to understand how to make zillions out of 5p.

Shinamae

FannyCornforth

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

Great idea Fanny! 👏🏻👏🏻

I acknowledge the sentiment, but would the NHS really want an influx of untrained conscripts? The armed forces are mostly very clear about this as far as I know - they don't want national service

I’m guessing more maths in schools isn’t top of the public’s wish list for this government to be focussing on. Maths and physics is increasingly taught by non specialists in schools , so enforcing extra classes is going to be the spare capacity teachers drafted in. Not always a problem I know - but it depends what type of maths the PM is envisioning? Do we all need to know about calculus , advanced geometry etc or would understanding interest rates, apr , mortgages etc be more useful?

What does Sunak mean by Maths?

Does he mean pure Maths or Applied Maths?
Does he mean a post-GCSE course in the type of Maths everyone requires for everyday living? Most people can apply GCSE level maths to their everyday lives.

Will Arts students have to carry on with Maths even if they have passed it at GCSE level and it seems irrelevant to their futures to learn more?

Growstuff, thanks for your comment about what you’d have on the basic maths list. Averages are taught in upper key stage two and extended in KS3. Perhaps it could include how the use of averages is portrayed in the media to raise awareness if that you say.
Any more GNs willing to add their ideas of what should be taught in basic maths.

What does Sunak mean by Maths?

I suspect he means arithmetic.

And learning how to understand/use percentages.

Stuff like that that's useful for everyday life.

So why do so many people (including some on GN) misunderstand averages?

PS. It's a bit of an obsession of mine!

Mollygo

Blossoming

I think basic literacy and numeracy should be taught to all. Appropriate provision should be made for pupils struggling with either.

In primary school, huge efforts are made to do exactly that. We have had training in using strategies to address dyslexia and dyscalculia. Strategies which
address the needs of pupils with either but are useful for all pupils.
I’d love to know what GNs class as basic maths and basic literacy.
Would we have total agreement or would each Gransnetter have their own views about what constitutes basic?

Yet many pupils leave school without those skills. So it appears that there isn’t appropriate provision.

It's not going to happen anyway.

It's all pie (pi?) in the sky!

growstuff

So why do so many people (including some on GN) misunderstand averages?

PS. It's a bit of an obsession of mine!

Because they are fairly abstract ideas and because there's 'average' and 'mean' and people get confused.

Many people also don't understand, for example, that if you quote a figure for a nation's average annual income, what it means is that most people earn less than that.

It's still a useful measure though.

What does Sunak mean by Maths?
I suspect he means arithmetic.
And learning how to understand/use percentages.

Stuff like that that's useful for everyday life

Yes, I think so too. However, if someone doesn't know all that after 12 years in education, are they going to learn, especially if they're not interested?

Those who are interested and want to take Maths at A level will already have absorbed all that information anyway.

FannyCornforth

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

I’m a business studies teacher and absolutely rubbish at maths!! Did teach English at Level 2 though.

Blossoming

Mollygo

Blossoming

I think basic literacy and numeracy should be taught to all. Appropriate provision should be made for pupils struggling with either.

In primary school, huge efforts are made to do exactly that. We have had training in using strategies to address dyslexia and dyscalculia. Strategies which
address the needs of pupils with either but are useful for all pupils.
I’d love to know what GNs class as basic maths and basic literacy.
Would we have total agreement or would each Gransnetter have their own views about what constitutes basic?

Yet many pupils leave school without those skills. So it appears that there isn’t appropriate provision.

What happens is that a topic is "taught" and it's assumed it's been "learnt" and the appropriate box (done that) gets ticked. All learning needs to be reinforced, if it's to be retained and it's naive to think that all pupils will have understood something just because it's been taught.

I suppose it makes more sense than Boris Johnson’s idea that everyone should learn Latin…( does Sunak realise that some people leave school at 16?)

Baggs

growstuff

So why do so many people (including some on GN) misunderstand averages?

PS. It's a bit of an obsession of mine!

Because they are fairly abstract ideas and because there's 'average' and 'mean' and people get confused.

Many people also don't understand, for example, that if you quote a figure for a nation's average annual income, what it means is that most people earn less than that.

It's still a useful measure though.

Well, people shouldn't get confused. There are three different "averages" (mean, mode, median) and it's important that people understand what is meant.

You're right that some people don't understand that half of people receive less than the median income and there's rarely any indication how low the "tail" of the distribution goes. That's the kind of thing I mean. The average quoted is usually the mean, which is almost always higher than the median.

MayBee70

I suppose it makes more sense than Boris Johnson’s idea that everyone should learn Latin…( does Sunak realise that some people leave school at 16?)

They don't - not in England, anyway. They might leave school, but they have to stay in education of some sort until 18.

Horse to water?
Provision is made, far more than when I was at primary school where we had A, B and C streams and the D stream who “weren’t expected to achieve much”.

Primary maths is at least an hour a day. Any more than that and accusations of narrowing the curriculum are levelled at teachers. Interventions and support are provided for pupils who struggle. Far more focus is put on children, understanding the basic arithmetic they are doing, where we just learnt to do it.

What do you consider to be basic maths that all children should be able to do at the end of primary or secondary education?
What strategy do you think would ensure that no pupils leave school without those skills?

I guess pupils could learn to count in Roman numerals.

growstuff

I guess pupils could learn to count in Roman numerals.

Heaven forbid! That would count as a fun activity. We already do that when the theme is Romans.

Exactly Mollygo. I quite agree.
These are the programmes of study up to age 11. (Date is 2013 so would be grateful if there are updates that don't appear on the site. )

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335158/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_-_Mathematics_220714.pdf

Agree with your post of 11.33 that is!

Mollygo I'm not an expert in designing schemes for maths, but I do know that skills need constant recycling. I saw from my own children how topics were sometimes visited, assumed to be learnt and then the whole class moved on.

I also saw from my own experience as a secondary MFL teacher how many Year 7 pupils couldn't tell the time or understand a train timetable. When it came to teaching numbers in a foreign language, we would sometimes give pupils simple arithmetic puzzles to practise the new vocabulary and there were always some pupils who couldn't do very basic addition, subtraction or sequencing, despite (in some cases) achieving reasonable SATs results.

Mamie

Exactly Mollygo. I quite agree.
These are the programmes of study up to age 11. (Date is 2013 so would be grateful if there are updates that don't appear on the site. )

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335158/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_-_Mathematics_220714.pdf

But a Programme of Study doesn't mean that pupils have understood everything.