To think we should teach kids about mortgages and pensions instead of making them do Maths till 18?

[malificent7]

Never have i had to work out the area of a triangle since school so why isn't Sunak proposing we teach kids proper life skills instead? My dad never taught me and would have been better placed lecturing me on mortgages than harping on about pythagoras ( again...never used).

I have thought for years it would be far more beneficial to use maths class to teach budgeting, mortgage basics, overcharges etc and probably more interesting than Logarithms, Algebra etc

If someone has the aptitude and wants to advance in mathematics fine, go into specialist maths then.

I don't understand why these comments always come up. Why is it your partner's job to teach anything? You could argue that anything could be taught at home, it doesn't invalidate debate about what would be the most useful things to prioritise in schools.

But that's exactly the same maths re. compound interest that applies to mortgages and pensions. As others have said, really not complicated maths at all.

Don't stop there.

We should educate children that the way they vote affects how much they get paid, whether they'll ever be able to afford their own home, or children of their own, how much their mortgage is, how much they pay for energy, whether the area they live in gets enough investment in infrastructure, and how close to 70 years old they can retire.

There is huge scope for sensible life skill maths to be taught and it would do all our kids good to try the exercise - you earn xxxx and your rent is yyy, work out your utilities bills and how much money you have left. Now make choices about how to spend the rest of your money, food, drink, night out etc.

So after 11 years of schooling people need to go back to primary school mathematics and be taught basic addition and subtraction?

I agree these are basis life skills just as learning to tie shoelaces or tell the time. Parents should teach financial management but most do not.

DS is a teacher and he does cover all that kind of thing in PSHE because he thinks it's important.
Not sure it's really maths though is it?

I would go further on economics education though given the state of some comments during last few years

Not if you are taught properly. But loads of people don't really understand compound interest etc becuase why would they if they've never been taught how it works.

Agree with this. And philosophy.

There's a reason many politicians and others in senior positions have studied these subjects and yet they are almost entirely absent from the national curriculum.

Pretty sure that using series to sum up compound interest is something I covered at A Level.

Haven't RTFT but take it you're using the royal 'we'?

Well it actually truly understand mortgages.

You need to be able to do simple calculations.
Be able to calculate percentages.
Understand interest rates.

You need basic maths skills, adding, subtraction, multiplication, division etc. Then percentages etc. Theres isnt any point in teaching about APR and bank accounts if the basic maths skills arent there

Teaching maths gives then numerical literacy. As a 14 year old I would have fallen asleep if anyone taught me about pensions and mortgages before I needed to know.

School cannot replace everything your parents should teach you, or as an adult there is up to date information freely available online or from specialist advisors if needed. Schools and teachers cannot keep up to date with current pensions and mortgages information and there is also implications on crossing the line between teaching vs financially advising.

And if 11 years of education with maths as a core subject have failed to teach what are - as you noted - the most basic and simple maths skills, do you think that two more years would suddenly change this?

As well as the practical ‘life’ matters already mentioned, I’d add the ability to work out areas e.g., how many tiles of X x Y cm do you need to tile a bathroom wall.

I would have thought knowing how to build and manage a financial spreadsheet would be the most useful thing.

Same.
Compound interest was done at A Level. Its surprisingly difficult to calculate.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER Calculating areas is very basic maths that's surely part of every single curriculum!

You mean the knowledge of geometry that the OP claims she has never ever used?

You can calculate APRs using quadratic equations. Hurrah for ‘specialist’ (Christ) maths.

When I taught Citizenship and PHSE, financial education and basic understanding of government/voting/elections were included in KS3 and 4, plus a lot more. Then one M Gove decided it need not be taught.

Life skills should be within someone’s remit (obviously the parents but we all know there are plenty of people having kids without having any useful skills themselves)… but not convinced it’s for schools. They already seem to do social work, counselling, feeding children, safeguarding, and some teaching when time permits.

Might be better to try and educate the parents - there are plenty of organisations that aim to improve money management etc.

Mortgages and pensions are maths

Yeah, this with knobs on!

For anyone commenting that mortgages etc “aren’t difficult to understand”, I invite you to drop into one of the many AIBU mortgage threads. The ignorance is staggering.

People blithely extending mortgages to 35 or even 40 years to afford houses whose prices have been inflated inflated by precisely those lending practices. Without a clue that it massively increases the amount of interest they pay over the term compared to a 25 year mortgage, and hampers their ability to save for retirement. Because dream home!

Or consolidating unsecured loans into a mortgage because the rate looks lower. Of course anyone doing this will ultimately pay much more interest because the loan will be paid back over 20+ years rather than three or five, but nobody seems to get that bit. Lower rate!

Girls grammar school, bottom-set O level maths class, c. 1961,

we were taught and practised (without calculators)

How to calculate compound loan interest
How to balance a bank account, and write a cheque.
How to calculate the amount of fitted carpet required by room size.
How to calculate the amount of fabric required for curtains
How to fill in HMRC tax returns using all current tax allowances and work out the tax owed.
How to calculate the time it would take to drive from A to B at various speeds
How to read bus and rail timetables and plan a journey from them.
How to measure the height of a tree or building using a ruler and protractor.

  We thought it was all as boring as hell, but I've been grateful ever since.