FURIOUS with Gove's maths comments

[BusterGut]

The man is a total twat.
He is so out of touch, he must be living on Mars.

Bloody 'pre-algebra' - that's missing no. sums in Y2.
Bloody 'maths every day' - who doesn't?
Bloody teaching maths till 18 ????????? (Pity the sec sch maths teachers)

GGrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
(I've written to the slimy little toad. Anyone else going to join me?

So sorry to 'abrade'......There are things that are irritating me as well.

I have already said that the children in my Y2 class all know their 2x, 5x and 10x tables. Some of them know all of them to 10x10. We chant the bloody things every day.

irksome 's dd.

Moondog I don't think you quite get it. Whether we write about rainforests or spirogyra on Mars, the objective of the lesson may be as simple as: 'To use capital letters and full stops'.

English language skills can be taught through other subjects.

Quite - what do you want them to write essays about - semi colons?

"the children in my Y2 class all know their 2x, 5x and 10x tables."

that's not enough

What about whole classes, whole schools of children who are not doing well? It's not a case of identifying individuals there. It's a case of do it in school or they won't learn it.

"Chanting on the way to granny's house" - this is fairy tale stuff, nothing to do with the reality of many people's lives.

Writing about rainforests - well that's fine isn't it, once you've been taught something about rainforests or spirogyra. No child is going to produce work on rainforests and spirogyra without having lessons about it. (and every child of six that has to learn how to spell "spirogyra" is wasting their time on it.)

You are looking at it from the wrong angle. I look at it from the results. "Children are failing: they are poorly educated. What's to be done? What's wrong with things the way they are? What can we change? What can we not change?"

You start with the methodology. "Well the methodology's fine, that's an absolute given. So if the children fail it must be something to do with erm the children and the parents. It doesn't matter that we can't change that - that's the problem and we see no reason to change the methodology to accommodate that. If the children fail so be it - it's the parents fault."

Of course you have to teach about rainforests, volcanoes, wolves, etc, etc before the children can write about them! (?) (Spirogyra was actually a joke.)

I will say it again. We chant times tables every day in school - chanting them on the way to granny's house is an extra, that some parents will get children to do.

What children are failing exactly? 'Children are failing' is a bit of a general statement! Where is your evidence?

I think you've missed out the people who you really think are failing in your list - the teachers. You have already said that the teachers should be doing the teaching, not the parents.

Actually I think it's the NC that's failing. Teachers that fail to see that there's any problem at all are an associated issue.

"What children are failing?"

Every week there are comments from employers about how poorly educated British children are. There were a hundred thousand children leaving primary with English levels two years below what they should have been (grammar). What do you think of that? Do you just deny it?

So what exactly is he saying? I realise that The Lord Bew review highlighted the over-testing of English and the disparity between the reading and writing scores (which does rather illustrate that they are not testing at the same (appropriate) level) but I thought KS2 maths was considered appropriate and fair.

Maths later on does rather depend on maths early on - I know that much even though I am only an English teacher - but surely he is not suggesting that they should make KS2 Maths harder?

teachers "who" fail to see that

worth saying twice I feel

"You are looking at it from the wrong angle. I look at it from the results. "Children are failing: they are poorly educated. What's to be done? What's wrong with things the way they are? What can we change? What can we not change?""

I don't see where this is coming from at all!

Does anyone know which computer games Marcus du Sautoy has been involved in developing? I'd love to find out, it would be fun to have these on the systems. Does anyone remember Zoombinis? My eldest loved that - he's now a second year maths undergraduate.

I don't understand what you mean Irksome.

"As a secondary school teacher, I get lots and LOTS of year 7s coming in who can't read to the level demanded by the secondary curriculum. And the numbers are actually increasing."

??? Which bit of this do you not believe?

Are you saying that all children are failing and being poorly educated, or some are, or what, and on what figures and by what measures are you judging this?

Who's the secondary teacher, is that on this thread?

Yes reading much?

And a bit more lefty one to boot.

All I know is that my kids have been taught maths skills consistently earlier than I was in the 80s - long division, algebra, tables to 12, and so on - I have been consistently surprised by the ages at which they've covered things.

And I'm not great on helping with homework, I do tend to see it as their (the kids') business rather than mine, I must say.

I think this is another of Gove's straw men, and I disagree that children are currently being failed by bad/not enough maths teaching.

Anecdotal, but only as much so as the teacher cited by Gooseberry, I suppose.

Obviously not all are failing: thousands and thousands of children are failing. You are a teacher, yes? How has this passed you by?

No, I'm not a teacher. Why did you think that?

Ah, I see you are not a teacher. Xpost. So you think this is a straw man based on your experience of one school and one child?

Ha, so if I was a teacher this would be teacher-bias, but if my opinions are based on my children and their schools, its not valid either?

Seems a little unfair!

The teacher's experience is slightly wider than yours. Every year, a tranche of children, and it's increasing. Employers are complaining. Statistics are damning.

But you're alright Jack.

No if you're a teacher it would be surprising that you hadn't noticed. As your a parent you can't be blamed for not noticing if you don't read the papers or don't have that much of a wider interest. But then you can be blamed for basing an argument on the experience of one child in one school, and you should certainly be prepared to have an interest in information which may challenge your view, otherwise it's just prejudice.

you're

jeex

I have just read the thread. Buster I think you seem to know exactly what you are doing. Do you have a full class? I think it is difficult for people who have not had to try to formatively assess and help 30 children in every hour long lesson to understand the impossibility of the task. I work in a different environment now and have discovered that the 'magic number' of 23 to a class is really true (to explain - when I was training this was the number of children a teacher - supposedly - would actually be able to give personal attention to in 1 hour). If we are to have classes larger than this then perhaps there must be some making-do with parental help.

Although I should also point out that sometimes parental help can confuse a child. Reading at home though - surely that is like motherhood and apple-pie, no-one can be against it!