Grandma70s
Chocolatelovinggran
Yes, David , maths is compulsory up to age sixteen, or older, if the students undertake the International Baccalaureate.
Luckily for me, I could get a university place to read English without O Level maths, provided I had Latin, which I did. This was a very long time ago. I have a higher degree in English, but I didn’t even take O Level maths. I’d have failed, anyway,
Just as well. I've never understood pushing maths - as either one can do it or one can't and it depends on what type of mind one has imo. My father was a maths teacher - but me...I couldnt even pass my O level in it - because that's not the sort of mind I have and, for some of us, our mind will only function at the lowest level on anything like maths or anything technical. So I don't see the point of pushing someone whose mind just doesn't go in that direction - as long as we can manage to work out our own budget = that's all the figurework etc we need to know and we will manage without that basically perfectly well.
Could we have it both ways? A mind that would work that way or, on the other hand, is more intuitive. I know which serves me best personally - as a shopkeeper locally found out yesterday when he let someone nip in briefly in front of me (the customer he was serving) - as this is one of the faults of this area that they do that here. Cue for when I was looking for my (expensive) possession we both knew was where we left it (ie on the counter) - and up comes my mind with "Mr Rude Man that just nipped in has stolen it - he's got it". Thanks to that mindset - doubtful shopkeeper was given no choice but to follow up and ring Rude Guys phone - and he had to walk back into the shop and hand me back my stolen possession.
In my opinion one just can't have both frame of mind and a mind that will cope with maths/technology way of thinking. They're mutually exclusive. Me - I'd rather have the mindset where I found someone's home before now - when they hadnt told me the address - but I walked straight to it and in the unlocked back door (just as well it was the darn correct house) and I knew my possession had been stolen yesterday in time to get it back again.
