No, you don't need to know Maths to be a footballer

[Ronbo]

"NSPCC Number Day" at school again. 🙄

The letter says "children are invited to dress up as someone who uses maths/numbers in thier everyday jobs". Lots of girls dressed as engineers, builders, astronauts, chefs. Well done to them.

Of course, just like every single previous dress up for school day, all the boys turn up in full football kits.

"Coz there is a number on my shirt, and err, u need maffs to count the score."

It was depressing when the same thing happened at "dress up as your favourite character from a book day" but for me this is a new low.

The difference is that many girls don't have lots of football kits (Liverpool, ManU or whatever) lying about at home. Might sound a bit sexist but I believe it's true. That's the only difference I'd say.

the boys just want to wear their football clothing and its easy for parents to organise if they already have the clothing.

Dress up as yourself.
Everyone uses maths every day if you think so or not.

Schools and parents shouldn't be sending out signals that you only need maths for jobs xyz.

They certainly could do and it would improve their football.

It would not improve their football. Only practicing football actually improves your football. Otherwise Manchester United would be signing the guys who wrote the Researchgate articles.

I do understand your point though. And I accept that it's not impossible to imagine a scenario where a player might do a maths sum.

But I think you have to accept that it's nothing like a core part of being football player, and it's really not hard to think of jobs that really do use maths.

There is a much simpler reason the boys are dressing as football players while the girls dress as doctors and it's not because the parents are avid readers of Researchgate

All the boys? Really?

My DS doesn't like football and has never owned a football kit.

in football there is a lot of looking at statistics, maths to work out position in table etc. football is big business so a lot of maths involved in managing the accounts of the club. Maybe not all done by the footballer themselves but some of it will be relevant. Could be a great opportunity to show the importance of maths in every part of life.

It would not improve their football. Only practicing football actually improves your football.

Targeted practise, armed with scientific/technical knowledge is what will improve their football. Of course it's valuable.

But I think you have to accept that it's nothing like a core part of being football player, and it's really not hard to think of jobs that really do use maths.

All jobs use maths. Why did you decide, before the fact, that only certain ones are acceptable for this learning activity.? You could construct many learning points around the use of maths in football. So why not just do this? You're coming across as very rigid on your thinking.

There is a much simpler reason the boys are dressing as football players while the girls dress as doctors and it's not because the parents are avid readers of Researchgate

Yes. Dress up days are lazy ways into topics and aren't going to engage every child. That's on the school, not the kids.

You sound like a terrible teacher who knows nothing about sports at high level. If it was so easy to play like Christiano Ronaldo and involved nothing but practice, surely more people would do it and he wouldn't get pid as much?

paid*

YABU - everybody needs maths albeit not necessarily in their everyday work. Football is very data driven these days & whilst they won't be calculating it they will need to understand what it's showing.

Also - why not wear something comfortable that you already own? Sustainability.....

Maybe I'm not the best judge though because Dd1 is 11 & has worn her England football kit to culture day at an all girls secondary today.

Trying to somehow fit footballer into the category of "someone who uses maths in their jobs" is just lazy. It's not like it's really difficult to think of a job that really does actually use maths.

Ignoring the ignorance/classism in the OP, this is no different to all the girls turning up as a Disney princess for WBD. And there's reasons for that. One significant reasons being that these are 'costumes' that children are more likely to have at home already and so not requiring parents to go and buy something during a cost of living crisis.

I disagree. A top footballer would need a good understanding of maths in order to work out how to spend their money. Kwt them wear what they like, its a novelty day

You have to be pretty dim to think that. Someone worth that much money isn't letting someone who knows all the ways to fiddle money legally take sole responsibility of their finances.

Can we just establish the most important thing here? Are the children raising money and awareness for the NSPCC?

I voted Yabu because I think maths is involved in everything so you could probably dress up as anything. Actually, perhaps they should stop making people dress up all the time. You need good maths skills to know how much you’re spending on time and money on unnecessary costumes!
And most accountants, engineers and scientists I know just wear normal clothes. Actually, getting people to dress up as astronauts probably misses the point massively as it gives children the wrong impression that if they study maths then they can become an astronaut. They’re actually probably better off studying maths to get a job developing models for betfair (another way that football and maths interact). I get so annoyed with all the blooding dressing up.

Lol, jumped the shark there.

Our school just asks you to dress in clothing with a number. Both of mine (boy and girl) go in their football tops because they have numbers on. I’m not spending more time/money/energy than I have to 🙂

Plenty of girls dress up as footballers. Plenty of boys don’t dress up as footballers. This isn’t a sex thing.

The point of the day is to raise money for the NSPCC is it not?

So the children get to have some fun and they make a donation to the charity.

I've just looked on the NSPCC website and it says that the day is an "opportunity to apply their maths skills to everyday scenarios whilst raising money for a fantastic cause".

Therefore what difference does it make to anyone or anything whether a child wears their football kit or writes Engineer on a tracksuit.

There is quite a lot of maths involved in rugby and I imagine in cricket too.

Not getting a claimant or out in your job doesn’t mean footballers ‘don’t use maths’. Or maffs as you put it

Why do you care

I know next to nothing about football but I coach a different sport to kids from preschool age to Sixth Form and I use maths and physics in every single session I coach. I normally don't call it that of course, though I was discussing Newton's Laws of Motion and vectors with the older group recently, but even with younger ones we do little activities asking "if I do this, what happens, and why".
Of course you need the appropriate physical attributes, skills, attitude and to practice like mad to become good at any physical activity but it's rare meet anyone whose performance of a task doesn't improve if they understand it better. There's quite often a real lightbulb moment with kids who are struggling with something if you can get them to think through the science, even if you don't use technical language.
My DD is a dancer, now a teacher, and she'd say the same I'm sure.
Even at grassroots level there is plenty of STEM in sport.

Ah so that’s what it is - you a ‘girl mom’ who thinks little boys are lesser/smell/not as worthy as little Princess.

It all makes sense now

No, calculating projectiles and newtonian physics would be maths. They're not doing that. This is experiential learning, practice and skill