Apparently it is our fault that the economy is such rubbish because we can’t add up

Assuming Sunak has a basic level of maths, I fail to understand why he considers a 2.5% pay offer , a pay rise.

However one thing we can be clear about is that he has little understanding of how an economy works.

Grammaretto

I am not anti maths at all and extremely proud of my clever DC and D,GC though I doubt they would want to teach.
However in the '60s in an all girls school with no male staff, maths teachers were hard to come by.
We had to understand logarithms and measure the paths around tennis courts
I was ok at mental arithmetic which was useful as we weren't allowed calculators.

I guess that I'm older than you because calculators weren't in general use when I was at school. However, using calculators in my working life I found mental arithmetic very useful because doing a calculation on a calculator I would have some idea of the outcome. It's very easy to hit the wrong key without noticing. I still use my trusty calculator but regularly use mental arithmetic too.

My kids were well impressed with my mental arithmetic . I
had to teach them ways to do quick calculations. When using a calculater I always do a quick mental calcul before starting as well. I think it was the best thing about maths, as for that
algebra, oh no............zzzzzzzzz

There might be unintended consequences which Sunak wouldn't like, indeed there may, growstuff. I can't tell you how many times I shouted at the TV when NIC was raised to 13.5 and was being reported as a 1% increase, when it was in fact in excess of 10%. Maybe people will also realise that a drop in inflation does not mean that prices will drop, it just means that they will not rise by so much.

As someone who was taught Maths by a teacher far too clever to teach 11 year olds, I lost my way mathematically for years.

I am bemused when people laughingly claim to be 'rubbish at maths' but would not make the same claim about their literacy. To an extent, I can see Sunak's point, but like all of his great plans, there has been no thought as to how these great advances in maths teaching will be achieved.

MaizieD

^However in the '60s in an all girls school with no male staff, maths teachers were hard to come by.^

I'm still finding this statement a bit startling with its implication that only men can teach maths!

I went to all girls school in the 60s (3 because of moving about) and the maths teachers were all women. I was fine at mental arithmetic and geometry but not algebra and all the other stuff they tried to teach me. I remember my dad trying to teach me something that involved that involved tables and slide rules and both of us getting cross.

I'm always wary of rote learning in maths. I was great at chanting tables, unfortunately I was an imaginative child and decided they were some sort of magic spell which gave you the answer if you said it right (OK I was strange!!) I had no concepts of numbers so when maths got harder I couldn't do it. I only realised where my ideas failed when I was training to teach. It is so much more important for a child to understand their times tables than be able to chant them.

Dinahmo

Grammaretto

I am not anti maths at all and extremely proud of my clever DC and D,GC though I doubt they would want to teach.
However in the '60s in an all girls school with no male staff, maths teachers were hard to come by.
We had to understand logarithms and measure the paths around tennis courts
I was ok at mental arithmetic which was useful as we weren't allowed calculators.

I guess that I'm older than you because calculators weren't in general use when I was at school. However, using calculators in my working life I found mental arithmetic very useful because doing a calculation on a calculator I would have some idea of the outcome. It's very easy to hit the wrong key without noticing. I still use my trusty calculator but regularly use mental arithmetic too.

Exactly, Dinahmo. If you don't have a grasp of what the approximate answer would be how can you tell if your calculator produced answer is correct?

I don't think that children use calculators in primary, or perhaps they're only introduced late on. My Y4 grandson doesn't use one.

I felt frustrated when working with children with poor literacy that they would accept computer spell check corrections without hesitation, even if they were wildly wrong, because they didn't have a basic grasp of spelling. It's the same over reliance on technology.

Dinahmo

Grammaretto

I am not anti maths at all and extremely proud of my clever DC and D,GC though I doubt they would want to teach.
However in the '60s in an all girls school with no male staff, maths teachers were hard to come by.
We had to understand logarithms and measure the paths around tennis courts
I was ok at mental arithmetic which was useful as we weren't allowed calculators.

I guess that I'm older than you because calculators weren't in general use when I was at school. However, using calculators in my working life I found mental arithmetic very useful because doing a calculation on a calculator I would have some idea of the outcome. It's very easy to hit the wrong key without noticing. I still use my trusty calculator but regularly use mental arithmetic too.

Yes, it's very useful to think "well, that can't be right".

No calculators when we were at school either, although we did have these:

It is so much more important for a child to understand their times tables than be able to chant them.

I think that both are important, Glorianny. Instant recall of the product of 5 x 9, or 7x 8, or whatever, makes working out a problem so much faster and less prone to error.

👀

Sunak is being investigated by the standards committee for failing to declare an interest in his wife’s child care company.

Government grants to the company are mentioned.

I thought he was going to clean up the sleaze?

WW3 shock horror…. I knew about his wife’s interest in a child care company as it had been reported some time ago. His wife is not a government official.

Fleurpepper

ronib

GN proves that there’s an anti Tory mindset.

Oh I do wonder why, when they have been doing such an excellent and admirable job?!?

I wouldn't say it was just a 'mindset' but more a valid response to the disaster that our country has become because of how the tories have behaved in the past years and how they behave now.

Well that’s your opinion Philippa111 but a wife with an interest in a child care company which is very much needed to help young families and a prime minister who wants to encourage learning and participation in education is hardly the most damaging endictment is it?

Indictment typo

Given the shortage of maths teachers, common sense would dictate that anyone opting to teach maths should have any student debt reduced. Or be paid to do their PGCE, or whatever they may call it now.
So of course the govt. won’t do anything so blindingly obvious.,

As someone who took 2 goes to pass O level maths, I think that people who are naturally good at it, just don’t ‘get’ why others find it hard. Dh is a case in point - A grades at maths A level etc. and a degree needing maths - unfortunately dds were more like me, and when trying to help with homework he simply couldn’t understand why they found it hard.

But I must say English teaching could do with improvement too - the numbers of people who e.g. haven’t a clue where to put an apostrophe do make me despair. These things are not remotely difficult if taught properly - I say that as someone who never had any trouble teaching such things to (mostly) speakers of Arabic.

GrannyGravy13

Chardy

GrannyGravy13

Do any of you think that the elephant in the room regarding maths and most teaching at secondary level is the breakdown of discipline in the classrooms.

My AC were respectful of their teachers and a tad afraid of some.

My GC whilst respectful are of a generation where their teachers are trying to be friends with their pupils. Great on some levels but how do you discipline a class full of friends.

I am not advocating a return of the cane/ruler or the thrown blackberries rubber, but exclusion and isolation in my opinion do not appear to be useful tools.

'The breakdown of discipline in the classrooms' in secondary schools - are these comments based on anything other than friends and family anecdotes?

I am able to read and listen to the news.

We have friends who are teachers, and head teachers.

The media likes sensationalism, so personally I don't trust what TV and papers say about what's happening in a particular country currently or the state of the marriage of a certain celebrity.
Friends who are teachers tell you all about their failed lessons, the kids hanging from the light fittings??
As for head teachers, they are telling you about the appalling behaviour in their school?? Both I suggest are doubtful.
I would guess (as someone who taught in schools for decades, was responsible for the learning and behaviour in a big department's classrooms in several different schools, in several different areas of the country) that they were telling you the sensational stuff they'd heard about in other people's lessons or other people's schools.
I can tell you awful things about a friend of a friend's childbirth horror story, but I don't believe that that story reflects UK childbirth in general.

ronib

WW3 shock horror…. I knew about his wife’s interest in a child care company as it had been reported some time ago. His wife is not a government official.

But the company has benefited from payments made to them by the government.

ronib

Well that’s your opinion Philippa111 but a wife with an interest in a child care company which is very much needed to help young families and a prime minister who wants to encourage learning and participation in education is hardly the most damaging endictment is it?

Indeed.

RS seems to be advising improving maths could be helpful. Totally different than the spin some are putting on his statement.

I'd guess maybe comprehension is also a missing skill?

Chardy I don't think behaviour is often "appalling", but I certainly think there's more low level disruption, which can be wearing and disrupts the flow of lessons.. I don't think it's entirely relevant to standards in maths anyway. I'm not really sure why the British seem to have low aspirations with maths - it seems to be ingrained and passed on from one generation to the next.

Whitewavemark2

ronib

WW3 shock horror…. I knew about his wife’s interest in a child care company as it had been reported some time ago. His wife is not a government official.

But the company has benefited from payments made to them by the government.

I did wonder if this is the latest dead cat to distract from that ... and rising prices and crisis in the NHS and polluted waters and and ...

It's not going to happen while he's still PM anyway.

growstuff

Chardy I don't think behaviour is often "appalling", but I certainly think there's more low level disruption, which can be wearing and disrupts the flow of lessons.. I don't think it's entirely relevant to standards in maths anyway. I'm not really sure why the British seem to have low aspirations with maths - it seems to be ingrained and passed on from one generation to the next.

I don't disagree growstuff. If I had £1 for every parent at Parents' Evening who told me how difficult maths was or how they couldn't do it at school, often in front of their own children...
TV is the same, Ed Balls this morning threw his hands up in horror at the mention of maths. Mention maths in passing and it gets a negative reaction over 50% of the time. History doesn't have the same effect!
I cringe at these responses.

The recent Labour Party ads have apparently done well and achieved what they were looking to achieve, in the areas they were looking to achieve.

The Tories not only can't add up, but they can't read a graph either. This graph is from the Government's website for the HoC Library.

Starmer was DPP from 2008 to 2013. The graph shows that in this period, prosecution increased steadily ... and then they fell off a cliff. Why do the Tories want to draw attention to this - unless they cannot understand figures or read a graph?

If you look up Ned Zahawi on Twitter, he tells us (and does the maths)
Probibility of successful prosecution:
Starmer = 55% convicted x 24.4% prosecuted = 13.42%
Current government 81% convicted x 3.2% prosecuted = 2.6%

If this is the level of Sunak's intellect, I look forward to the Leader's Debates before the General Election. It will be farcical.

Chardy

growstuff

Chardy I don't think behaviour is often "appalling", but I certainly think there's more low level disruption, which can be wearing and disrupts the flow of lessons.. I don't think it's entirely relevant to standards in maths anyway. I'm not really sure why the British seem to have low aspirations with maths - it seems to be ingrained and passed on from one generation to the next.

I don't disagree growstuff. If I had £1 for every parent at Parents' Evening who told me how difficult maths was or how they couldn't do it at school, often in front of their own children...
TV is the same, Ed Balls this morning threw his hands up in horror at the mention of maths. Mention maths in passing and it gets a negative reaction over 50% of the time. History doesn't have the same effect!
I cringe at these responses.

It was the same with languages. I'd settle for 50p for every time a parent (or grandparent) said that they used to muck around in French lessons.