Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Education

Join the discussion on our Education forum.

Original poster

Teach Roman Numerals in Primary Maths: Gove

191 replies

noblegiraffe · 13/08/2012 08:23

A story in The Guardian today has a charity expressing concerns about Michael Gove's plans for a new numeracy curriculum in primary school.

Among other things, the classically educated minister with a Latin obsession has decided that primary school children really need to be able to read Roman numerals up to 1000.

Baffling. I can't say it gives me any confidence about the quality of the rest of it.

OP posts:
BrittaPerry · 13/08/2012 08:26

I thought they already did? Actually, maybe not up to 1000, but in the 1990s we definitely did telling the time, working out dates etc.

Boggler · 13/08/2012 08:30

My ds (8yrs) spent a tern in year 3 covering the Romans, and amongst the many things they learnt was roman numerals. He doesn't know up to a 1000 but definitely up to 100, and he really enjoyed it, saw it as some sort of secret code. I don't have a problem with it.

Gunznroses · 13/08/2012 08:30

I thought they already did ? But in secondary school ? Many documents and clocks amongst other things use roman numerals, why is it a bad thing to learn ?

Original poster
noblegiraffe · 13/08/2012 08:37

No, they don't learn it in secondary school maths. I can understand it being part of a history lesson on the Romans, I can understand clock numbers and for kings and queens. But up to 1000 in maths? Crowding out other stuff from the curriculum and leaving less time for actual numeracy?

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 13/08/2012 08:41

Maybe it's time to ditch the use of Roman Numerals.

Clock faces are fine - after all you only need to know up to 12 and the position rather gives them away but anything else...? Really?

meditrina · 13/08/2012 08:46

The maths curriculum looks uncontroversial to me - it's things like knowing times tables to 12, fractions, graphs etc. Most/all of which is happening in good schools anyhow.

And recognising Roman numerals to 12 by year 3 seems a pretty anodyne target - DD can do it without ever being formally taught (mix of clocks and HH), and once you've got them to 20 it's pretty easy to take it up to 50, 100, 500 and 1000 - only four more symbols.

throckenholt · 13/08/2012 08:48

Roman numerals were useless for maths - didn't have a zero for a start ! It wasn't until the arabic numerals started to be used in the 13-1400s that maths started to get its act together in Europe.

Don't expect Gove to have any understanding of that though. Don't think he really knows what you would use maths for.

Gunznroses · 13/08/2012 08:48

I schooled abroad. Learning roman numerals was part of maths not history, this helped us in making a good connection between the two subjects, im not sure i'd have paid much attention or grasped the importance of it had it be covered in history.

I think learning them up 1000 is important as they have to be able to read dates e.g 2012.

throckenholt · 13/08/2012 08:49

Meant to say Roman numerals as part of history - fine. As part of maths - absolutely useless.

Olympicnmix · 13/08/2012 08:51

I learnt Roman Numerals in primary school, can't remember spending a great deal of time on it. Otoh, we also did binary in primary school! Do remember though having to tell a number of A Level students how to find the right chapter in their English exam as they didn't know Roman Numerals. It's just a bit of useful general knowledge, innit?

Gunznroses · 13/08/2012 08:52

I dont see how learning it as a topic on its own in maths is useless, the whole point is to emphasise a different way of numbering AND that it is current and NOT history.

CaseyShraeger · 13/08/2012 08:57

Bucking the trend, I think it's quite useful to learn Roman numerals in Maths because you can see how not having a zero and having no concept of place value makes it very difficult to do relatively simple arithmetic operations, and that will give a proper appreciation for our own number system.

But I suspect that's not why Gove wants them included.

Original poster
noblegiraffe · 13/08/2012 09:00

When was the last time you had to read a year in Roman numerals?

OP posts:
throckenholt · 13/08/2012 09:00

good point. Doing subtraction or mutliplying in roman numerals would be fun. Hmm - fractions - not sure I can get my head around that. ok - that is my morning sorted - trying to figure out how basic maths works in roman numerals.

Working in different bases - big YES to that - it really helps to understand place value and generally how numbers work.

SoupDragon · 13/08/2012 09:02

Can't say I've ever had to be able to read a date in Roman numerals.

throckenholt · 13/08/2012 09:03

hmm - this is tricky XLV/V - how can you do it without translating back to our numbers ?

JodieHarsh · 13/08/2012 09:03

Seriously?

Children in 'learning stuff' shock? Hmm Confused

Do you think children should only learn things of immediate use in the most narrow and non-academic of lives?

Don't you think education for education's sake is a wonderful thing, helping to expand minds and give them early access to a whole host of other subjects?

Bugger me. I mean why teach them any history further back than the miners' strikes, eh? Why show 'em paintings: they'll probably never own a Matisse anyway, so what's the point, it's irrelevant. And don't even get me STARTED on learning the difference between a bass clef and a treble clef! USELESS! As if they're going to be concert pianists!

Original poster
noblegiraffe · 13/08/2012 09:06

People complain that kids are leaving primary without basic arithmetic skills. I would much prefer the maths curriculum concentrated on that than something that's at best a 'nice to have'. If it's in the curriculum it'll be on the tests and time will be wasted trying to get lower ability kids to understand it rather than practising useful skills.

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 13/08/2012 09:08

I simply don't think Roman numerals are part of maths. You never do anything mathematical with them.

Gunznroses · 13/08/2012 09:08

Nobelgirrafe - last night to read a copyright date on the Bbc website.
So in your opinion because as we may not need it everyday we may as well not learn it ? Its a useless piece of information, ignorance is bliss, God help us!

throckenholt · 13/08/2012 09:08

Maybe that is a comment on the idiocy of the national curriculum and sats though ?

Original poster
noblegiraffe · 13/08/2012 09:09

Jodie calm down. I did say I didn't have a problem with them learning Roman numerals at all merely up to 1000 as part of an already stretched maths curriculum.

OP posts:
JodieHarsh · 13/08/2012 09:09

Of course you do mathematical things with them! In order to understand how they work you have to, for instance, see that X is ten, therefore XX is twenty, because it's 2 x 10.

I would have thought it was the perfect learning tool, combining history with basic arithmetic. And as someone upthread said, children like nothing more than codes...

JodieHarsh · 13/08/2012 09:10

Yes sorry Noble that was a disproportionately cross response Blush

I just think that as soon as you insist that children must onyl learn the bare necessities - particularly if it's because you think some children may not grasp it, therefore you'd better not even try - then it's striking at the heart of what education should be about.

Gunznroses · 13/08/2012 09:11

Soupdragon - thats irrelevant, the fact is its learning about numbers.