Compulsory maths for all students in England till they're 18

I don't think the economy is struggling because of a lack of maths skills, I think it's struggling due to a lack of skills full stop ie building trades, computing skills, technical creative skills etc. We need money put into vocational education which could include some maths.

The only reason our struggling economy is linked to maths is that the dimwit ex PM had a maths degree and still managed to trash the economy.

Of course it isn't.

@noblegiraffe how do you know the struggling economy is linked to maths?

To be fair most highly paid graduate jobs need a level maths with the exception of law (and its hard to get a training contract). Its much easier to get a job in financial services (and they pay way above national average even for entry level jobs). A lot of people in financial services may have unrelated degrees but equally there are lots with degrees in economics, maths and statistics.

Even Martin Lewis has realized that there is no way low earners can budget without falling into actual poverty, hence he is campaigning against the government these days rather than advising us on what mortgage deal, what utility company is appropriate to switch to. Its an earnings crisis, not a cost of living crisis. We have to earn more, there is no way out of it. People in the public sector have to go on strike, people in the private sector have to switch to companies and industries with larger margins. A bank can afford to pay its junior staff far better than a small business even with inflationary pressures. Its why salaries in financial services have risen 30% since 2019

www.fnlondon.com/articles/london-finance-workers-score-record-salary-surge-in-talent-war-jobs-hiring-20220718

I can't understand why you'd need post gcse maths unless you were aiming for a mathsy job. What would be so much more relevant is a module on budgeting a lower income. So many people would benefit from understanding how credit cards and loans work how the interest rates work and mortgages etc. people get themselves into a lot of trouble in some cases not understanding basic budgeting and if this was taught in school I'd respect that a lot more than more maths post 16.

I am in my 50s and was pondering the things I learnt at school that has been the most impactful on my life. Obvious things are reading and writing and maths but probably the things that has brought the most tangible benefits are swimming, tennis, team sport and badminton. These are the things that have kept me relatively fit over the years and have helped me build and maintain relationships. They have also helped me enormously with my mental health. Reading has provided much enjoyment too.

I was responding to your comment that maths was irrelevant after GCSE. You might find it irrelevant, but it's actually quite "useful" in many ways.

Been out of the UK for a long time now so don't know what changes have been made to A Levels but do they still have to do General Studies? If so, couldn't functional/life maths be added to that? That would be useful.

It is weird to think how early children have to specialise in subjects in the UK, missing out on so much other education. Maths (and other things like PE and music and suchlike, not just stem stuff) is compulsory for the whole of education in Finland but in high school you can choose to do basic maths instead of advanced maths, and just do enough to achieve the compulsory number of credits if maths really isn't your thing, but should hopefully be enough to make people functionally numerate in life.

Yes maths important to those who enjoy it and want to study it. Irrelevant to those who don't. I have had plenty of higher education, am interested in most things and I don't need to be an expert on disease modelling to read the papers 🤣 or are you saying only those versed in advanced maths can understand basic disease spread??

Obviously passing the GCSE is better than not passing it, especially as it is used as a gateway into various further qualifications / jobs.

However the fact that my 18yo hasn't for various reasons yet got that magic 4 for maths (or English Lang as it happens) doesn't mean she's not capable of managing her bank account, or working out if a vivarium will fit in her bedroom. So not entirely wasted.

Having a functional skills qualification in maths (not necessarily a GCSE) is useful for future careers.
Not getting a GCSE maths grade 4 at age 16 does not mean your secondary school time is wasted.
Those statements are not mutually exclusive.

What about the people who may never be able to achieve a 4 at GCSE? Waste of time them trying by your reckoning.

You wouldn't have a house with a window to look out of without maths.

I'm impressed that your maths GCSE covered mathematical modelling of diseases. That's generally at least undergraduate if not postgraduate level.

I assume you're using an electronic device to type in this message? Maths contributed to the creation of said device.
You also appear to be using the internet? That wouldn't exist without maths.

As Teen says, not getting a 4 at GCSE does not mean your time is wasted, anyway

Why do people keep saying this. It's necessary for teens to have a maths qual and English qual to do almost anything. I'm sure those students who are taught maths for 10/11 years? aren't so blase about finishing up with a 2 at gcse.

A good example of someone who doesn't understand statistics.

In the Venn diagram (that's another maths thing :) ) of pupils who left primary school with a good knowledge (not just scraping expected level) of primary school maths against those who don't get Level 4 at GCSE, what proportion of students are in the intersection? Hint - it's not 30%.

Maths lessons (which schools have a maths lesson every day??) are only wasted if a student has made no progress at all, learnt nothing, not even developed any confidence in 5 years. I suggest this is a vanishingly small number.
As Teen says, not getting a 4 at GCSE does not mean your time is wasted, anyway.

Just because someone hasn't passed GCSE maths does not mean the time spent teaching them has been entirely wasted

Well it sort of does! Especially to the student who is then doomed to be trapped in a cycle of taking and retaking.

Yes. I can do all those things, even though I only studied Maths to gcse level and got a B, a very long time ago.

Time is taught early (and easily picked up along the way)
Ditto budgeting as this is simple addition and subtraction and tbh done on a computer with a calculator anyway

Couldn't care less about the bridge!
Look out the window for thw weather

None of those examples convince me that maths for all is necessary post GCSE

How about making the study of history, philosophy or politics compulsory? I like the idea of subjects that help kids learn how to think and question.

Two things wrong with that.

1. GCSEs are designed to have a certain % failing.
2. Just because someone hasn't passed GCSE maths does not mean the time spent teaching them has been entirely wasted.

What about proper teaching before 16 to start with?
According to statistics, 30% of the GCSE pupils do not reach Grade 4 in Maths.

Although it is shocking in itself, a more careful look into details shows that to reach Grade 4, pupils need to get just 50% of full marks in Foundation paper, and to get these 50%, they hardly need to know anything beyond primary school content.

Conclusion: for 30% of pupils, five years of five lessons a week of Maths in secondary school are completely wasted.

You don't need to take maths officially though. I know because i was that 16 year old trying to get out of taking maths and they told me that I could take knowledge and inquiry which would count as a contrasting subject. You can take biology or chemistry too, they are also contrasting subjects! Its why I ended up choosing to do the IB instead of A levels because I didn't want to be the only student in the college who didn't take A Level Maths (in IB, you can study maths at standard level which is easier and involves fewer hours). But it was theoretically possible and the college I would have gone to would have accommodated that. so even Singapore doesn't have an official requirement like what Rishi is suggesting.

I didn't know it was possible to not do 4 Alevels until I came in the UK. In Singapore, people take A Levels or IB if they think they are likely to go to university. They go to polytechnic after GCSEs to study a vocational subject like engineering or maritime studies or graphic design which would enable them to get a job directly after polytechnic. Many do end up going to university after polytechnic, but it is seen to be better to go to polytechnic if you are unsure if you can get into a local university (many people can't afford to study overseas). As you are seen to have limited job skills with only a bunch of A levels but a polytechnic would actually allow you to train in a profession and make you do an internship which would help you secure a job. But of course university graduates earn more than polytechnic graduates and in certificate obsessed Singapore, it is thought that not going to university would cap your future earnings.

I agree with many posters who think financial literacy and numbers in the real world should be taught at 16 plus. It is shocking to me how many young adults cannot understand interest rates, work out discounts, understand tax rates, pension numbers etcetc.

And I don't think you need maths teachers for this - you could train up teachers from other subjects or even have a tier of 'instructors' who would only teach this. Save the maths specialists for A levels or GCSE.

And before anyone says it's 'teachers on the cheap', I am a teacher. And I've seen PE teachers very successfully move into Health and Social Care, RE teachers move into Sociology (I think both these subjects have a surplus of teachers) and Teaching Assistants taking on whole classes in primary.

I just don't see why people would be against making young people more aware and informed. There's plenty of room in the Sixth Form curriculum for more taught lessons as anyone with a Sixth Form student would testify.

Or me trying to explain to our reporting analysts why you can work out the statistics they require with only a record of all previous monthly totals and occurrence, instead of all individual data entries. The maths skills of many of UK reporting analysts are very lacking. Other devs and me can easily spot all the things that are dubious in their reports. It's shocking business decisions are made based on incorrect statistics. This detrimental lack of maths skills do not the data scientists, they tend to all be from STEM backgrounds. I think that's the area Rishi Sunak is thinking of.

I had a look at the Singapore model for A levels after @socialmedia23's post. It's very interesting the more academic kids do 4 A level subjects. Both arts and science streams require a contrasting subject. Arts take maths, and sciences take economics. This ends up being like

Common Arts Stream combinations: HELM (History, Econs, Literature, Math)
or GELM (Geography, Econs, Literature, Math). Common Science Stream combinations: PCME (Physics, Chemistry, Math, Economics) or BCME (Biology, Chemistry, Math, Economics)

This will work well with the older AS models, won't it? The source I used is from www.fa.edu.sg/a-level-subject-combi-guide/

It would be compulsory