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Every child to do maths up to age 18

(5 Posts)
Luckygirl3 Wed 04-Jan-23 09:35:54

Here we go again - not content with Gove's back-of-the-envelope curriculum interference, Sunak is now arguing the bee in his bonnet.

I am intrigued to know where he is planning to find the maths teachers to deliver this, given that there is an acute shortage already.

Septimia Wed 04-Jan-23 09:40:50

I agree that finding the teachers will be a problem. However, there are many subjects that do have a mathematical/statistical element - Science, Geography etc - which could be expanded by the existing subject teachers. There are, of course, many subjects where a mathematical element is totally lacking and something else would have to be organised. The 'How' of that will be the difficult part.

Luckygirl3 Wed 04-Jan-23 10:10:19

And I think the nature of the maths taught is important. For some students pure maths is appropriate, but for the vast majority there needs to be practical arithmetic that will prove useful in their future lives.

One of my DDs simply could not do maths as dictated by the curriculum. She failed to pass GCSE 3 times - she got a D each time, so this meant that she was not wholly ignorant on the subject, but failed to achieve the desired C. When she was at 6th form, she was forced to continue to try and achieve this, and it was the bane of her life. In the end I spoke to the teacher and said: "Look, she is a D as far as maths is concerned. We have 3 results as evidence of this. She accepts that this is her level. What are we trying to achieve here?" She was allowed to drop maths.

She was offered an unconditional place at a Russell Group university and achieved an MA. She now runs a highly successful business with her OH.

Mamie Wed 04-Jan-23 10:11:48

There is already a thread on this.

Grammaretto Wed 04-Jan-23 10:16:47

I wondered the same Lucky girl.
Yes it would be great to have a numerate population but don't we have computer s and calculators now?
As an artist who never passed maths biology was my science I already feel the anxiety your DD must have gone through.