Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Is Rishi Sunak utterly thick?

400 replies

noblegiraffe · 17/04/2023 21:07

Today he actually went ahead and announced his plans for everyone studying maths till 18.

And all everyone commenting on this on the news or social media has been saying today is "but this is mad because there aren't enough maths teachers to teach the qualifications we already have".

And teachers including maths teachers, are going on strike again next week because the government refuses to pay them properly. The government also failed to meet its maths teacher trainee recruitment target last year and will again this year.

This announcement just gives everyone the wonderful opportunity to point these governmental failings again and again.

Why the fuck would anyone with any political sense announce a policy that cannot happen and gives everyone the opportunity to point out that it can't happen because the government are shit?

Just why?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
10
Forfrigz · 18/04/2023 00:11

In the words of Limmy it 'didnae add up'

L1ttledrummergirl · 18/04/2023 00:12

https://twitter.com/politlcsuk/status/1648071208137531395?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

According to this it's been scrapped, again.

He's trolling us isn't he?

MrsHerculePoirot · 18/04/2023 00:14

@Youdoyoubabe we’re explicitly not allowed to teach kids about gambling!

Scaling down the ridiculously large GCSE content and making it more functional would be a great idea. Teaching to 18 isn’t the best answer to those financial topics you are suggesting. We do bits of that stuff within some topics and within PSHE type lessons at my school, but it isn’t on the curriculum so won’t get taught unless that changes.

Personally I would like to see the content reduced greatly with fewer, more useful/functional
topics focused on at GCSE.

Original poster
noblegiraffe · 18/04/2023 00:16

L1ttledrummergirl · 18/04/2023 00:12

https://twitter.com/politlcsuk/status/1648071208137531395?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

According to this it's been scrapped, again.

He's trolling us isn't he?

What? He only made his big speech this morning?

OP posts:
moveoverye · 18/04/2023 00:18

Boomboom22 · 17/04/2023 21:20

Buy in some maths apps, online certificate, boom. Tory donors can start work on the shitty apps now, no need to use proper ones that already exist etc.

Oh my life. So. Damn. Depressing.

Clementineorsatsuma · 18/04/2023 00:18

Socialdistancechampion · 17/04/2023 21:21

I was made to take "functional skills" at college (despite having a C grade GCSE) and I'm pretty sure my teacher for that wasn't a maths teacher. I would suspect it's an extension of this project

Very rude.
Functional Skills (note, no quote marks) are redirected qualifications by awarding bodies including City and lads, Pearson etc. they don't include quadratic equations or tangents, but they do include volume of a cylinder, area of a circle, BIDMAS and other useful maths.
Don't be such a rude snob.

SpringCherryTrees · 18/04/2023 00:22

Soonthen · 17/04/2023 21:16

It just doesn’t add up

Ha ha

Wavescrashingonthebeach · 18/04/2023 00:26

It's absolutely fucking ridiculous. You can't peg all children into a completely unworkable nevergoing to happen one size fits all box!
Maths to GCSE Level was more than sufficient for me. I know the basics, fractions & how to work out percentages etc, stuff that comes in handy in real life. As for algebra and anything more advanced? I am never going to need it, nor want to.

Thebestwaytoscareatory · 18/04/2023 00:47

LemonSwan · 17/04/2023 23:30

Is this not just basic maths? As in short course type thing rather than a whole further maths a level?

If so that would make sense. Writing, reading and maths are the corner stones of most things in life. You automatically continue reading and writing by virtue of just continuing education so no idea why maths wouldn’t be included.

What is more confusing is that everyone seems to have been taught different maths 🤣

Like this for example.. 6 ÷ 2(1 + 2)

To me that’s 1. Kids today are taught thats 9. Some others think it’s 6.

So who fucking knows.

I can work out how someone might get one, but how the he'll do you get six??

6÷2(2+1) = 6÷2(3) = 6÷2×3 = 3×3 = 9

Brackets then multiplication/division (working left to right) then addition/subtraction (also working left to right)

Surly that's how it's always been? Otherwise anything designed by engineers / builders / whatever from before the change would be sized different than from now.

ClaraBourne · 18/04/2023 00:58

Some Tory will get the backhanded contract for the big Maths online portal development project and earn bloody billions. It'll flop and that'll be the end if it.

But as long as somebody made some money from it the Tories won't care.

Beesandhoney123 · 18/04/2023 01:25

Is Mr Sunak having a dig at Liz Truss for some reason and her ill fated attempt at the economy?

Or is this him working up to the tories pretending they give a crap about state education In time for the elections?

Let's hear about the issues of today from the PM and some decision making. You know, leadership. Not wittering on about future maths strategy when nurses and doctors are striking and lives at risk.

Hurrydash · 18/04/2023 05:01

At least he's not too thick to understand what 100% means.

passiveaggressivenonsense · 18/04/2023 05:05

Havanananana · 17/04/2023 21:16

Because the point of this, and similar announcements, is to give the illusion that the government is actually "doing something" and to distract from all of the other areas where they are failing. Fill the front pages with nonsense like this and there is no space for anything else.

Johnson, as a former newspaper columnist, knew the value of this, so he made daft and unworkable announcements almost daily. Today's headlines are tomorrow's fish and chip wrappers, the promises soon forgotten and the debate moves on to the next topic. And if it keeps the opposition off the front pages, all the better.

This ! It's all about distraction, disaster capitalism techniques. It's the what the fu*kery technique used by Johnson and Trump. Whilst you're looking the other way they are stripping out rights and asset stripping our country.
By the time people wake up and start protesting, the legal right to protest will be long gone ( this is actually happening right now ) and it will be a criminal offense to protest.

borntobequiet · 18/04/2023 05:41

Hawkins003 · 17/04/2023 23:10

Your MrsHerculePoirot,
The point I'm suggesting, people easily point to lack of teachers ect, well with technology today majority of the population can teach themselves as the same knowledge teachers would teach, is the same or similar information as would be on eg YouTube etc

Show quote history

Good point. There’s a YouTube channel for everything, which is why everyone nowadays knows how to cook, manage their finances, sort out their plumbing, cut their hair, remove their troublesome wisdom teeth, neuter their cat and drive a car, with no need for direct personal help or instruction from an expert any more.

leafygarden · 18/04/2023 06:02

Socialdistancechampion · 17/04/2023 21:25

I don't see a problem with it. We have science teachers who can help, as well as technology. For functional skills you don't need a hands on teacher, if it's done in the same way as distance learning I don't see how this couldn't work

Hiya Rishi ! How's it going so far?

RosaGallica · 18/04/2023 06:06

You are labouring under the misapprehension that Britain is a democracy run by a government who gives a damn. That it’s a European style government.

It’s run by an elite group of internationalists running it as their private fiefdom for their pet projects and their own benefit, who have no idea how most people are forced to live. We are back in imperialist times.

C1N1C · 18/04/2023 06:18

@Havanananana
Notting Hill quote?

Mangoesontherun · 18/04/2023 06:19

Soonthen · 17/04/2023 21:16

It just doesn’t add up

Grin
Iloveabaconbutty · 18/04/2023 06:26

WaitingfortheTardis · 17/04/2023 21:27

Maths is important, but to force it as mandatory until 18 is absolute nonsense and shows, again, how out of touch the man is with reality and how little he understands that every child is different.

This. I hated maths at school and just couldn't see the point of matrices, sines, cosines, tangents etc. Although funnily enough my mental arithmetic (actually useful in real life) is excellent. I'm not thick and got good results in the arts-based A levels I took, and have two University degrees, but to have had taken maths to 18 for me would have been a miserable waste of time.

And yes, I agree with other pps it is not realistic in any event with lack of maths teachers. A lot of desperate nonsense peddled by a Conservative government desperate to stay in power.

Aishah231 · 18/04/2023 06:33

ClaraBourne · 18/04/2023 00:58

Some Tory will get the backhanded contract for the big Maths online portal development project and earn bloody billions. It'll flop and that'll be the end if it.

But as long as somebody made some money from it the Tories won't care.

Absolutely this. The future of teaching if the Tories (and maybe Labour - they are pretty quiet on where they stand) is a few trained professionals teaching multiple classes online with TAs in each room trying to do crowd control. That's what our children and grandchildren will be stuck with if we let it happen.

Howpo · 18/04/2023 06:51

Aishah231 · 18/04/2023 06:33

Absolutely this. The future of teaching if the Tories (and maybe Labour - they are pretty quiet on where they stand) is a few trained professionals teaching multiple classes online with TAs in each room trying to do crowd control. That's what our children and grandchildren will be stuck with if we let it happen.

Show quote history

Yes but as this proposal has just come out of the blue, so to speak, Labour are wise to hold back or face headlines along the lines of "Labour don't want to teach your children"

This "new" policy, along with many other Tory announcements, are just hot air.

Task force on racism in maternity care, has met 3 x since it was formed last year, last met in November!
None of the measures have been put in place (nationwide)... why? because there is no staff & as can been seen from the pay talks, they have no intention of getting more HCP or Teachers.

Once again, Tory austerity and indifference is proving very costly.

jgw1 · 18/04/2023 06:57

Oblomov23 · 17/04/2023 22:08

He's a dick. Why not focus on the problems in schools, to 16. Twat.

Do we need any more posts, surely this ones sums it up poetically?

jgw1 · 18/04/2023 06:58

ConcordeOoter · 17/04/2023 22:37

"Tory bot" whatever.

I come at it from the perspective of someone working on tech in a field where current "AI" is directly replacing human beings, as in they are losing their jobs now. Our entire economy is based in areas that will be affected: The change I describe is a necessity not a fun day-dream. The reason HMG and therefore Mr Sunak know this is because they have been told by people from my industry and others.

Yeah, I'm a bit down on the idea we need the maths teachers to do it. The maths dept at the comprehensive school I went to were frauds who sat taking money and cost generations of less able students their o levels and gcses. I work in a maths-related field now DESPITE them and then had to watch the same kind of maths teachers abscond during lockdown, very nearly costing my kids their exams. The reason I know they aren't necessary is because 2 generations of my family have been cut adrift by them.

If AI is so wonderful, why do most people need to learn maths if the computer is going to do it better than them anyway?

I am eagerly waiting to see a computer motivating a student who has for whatever reason been put off maths during the first 11 years of their schooling.

Postapocalypticcowgirl · 18/04/2023 07:10

The Tories definitely still think this is the future. They're systematically destroying teaching as a profession and I genuinely think this is their long term plan for state schools.

We are a long, long way off AI being able to answer an A-level paper in my subject, let alone teach it. And it has practical elements that can't be taught via video. But the Tories can buy out of this system anyway, and they don't actually care about the education most students in state schools achieve.

jgw1 · 18/04/2023 07:11

Endlesssummer2022 · 17/04/2023 22:58

Some uberlibertarian Tory donor tech firm is probably writing ‘AI teacher’ code as we speak. Kids will be steamed into low, mid, high ability classes and the AI will deliver the lessons and mark the tests. Voila, no more teachers and their pesky demands for a living wage and decent conditions. Maths will be the first proof of concept.

I am just as certain that Tory MPs and their supporters will still send their children to Winchester and Eton where there will be real teachers, because their little darlings are special.