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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Girls can't do maths !

192 replies

Keepo · 05/02/2010 15:55

My dd (10) loves maths. However, she is now the only girl in top set for maths in her class. All of her friends tell her that she cannot be good at maths because she is a girl . The other boys tell her the same.

This week they had a maths enrichment lesson and only the boys in her set got to go. I went to talk to her teacher about this and she told me she assumed that dd would not want to go. I asked why and she said "well I thought english might be more her thing she is a girl". . Am I alone in finding this odd. This attitude is starting to grind dd down.

Are all schools like this about girls and maths ? To be fair it does seem to have only come up this year.

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DiamondHead · 06/02/2010 20:35

Here's an inspiring maths lady. You can still meet her if you hang out in Chorlton long enough -

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_ollerenshaw

tootootired · 06/02/2010 20:36

I am sputtering with rage too. I was near the top of the year in maths all through school and have a top wack job in a technical profession. I love it. I have teachers to thank who encouraged me to keep going at it.

Please tell your DD from me that girls can be and are great at maths, being the only girl in class is not always a bad thing and she should be proud of her abilities. Certainly don't listen to what the other kids say - is the school encouraging this rubbish?

And if you haven't already, tear the school off a strip. I sincerely hope it was a misunderstanding, have we accidentally travelled back in time 100 years?

I can sew too so nyeaah teacher!

DiamondHead · 06/02/2010 20:41

Also, can I say on my degree course, the male female split was 50:50.
I think in fact these days thare are a lot of women in mathematics, more so than the sciences.

TheFirstLady · 06/02/2010 20:43

My 10-year-old DD gets Maths enrichment at school. Four of her class have been chosen for this. Three of them are girls. They happen to be the four best at maths in the class. What your DD's teacher said is outrageous IMO and I would take it up with the HT.

nitsparty · 07/02/2010 00:11

I'm a SATs marker of about 5 years standing. Apart from very bright or very poor students, I can usually tell whether I'm marking a boy or a girl. Girls tend to be scared of big calculations and muff them or miss them out altogether, but they go through the paper meticulously grabbing every easy mark they can. Boys will do long division problems with ease and confidence and make daft little mistakes (trangles have 4 sides), turn 2 pages over together etc. never done a scientific analysis-just my observation , for what it's worth.

Original poster

Keepo · 07/02/2010 09:34

Thank you so much for all your comments.I had not reallised it was Friday when I wrote the original post. I was blinded by my anger and thought I would be marching into school the following morning. Of cource it was Satruday .

Anyway, I now feel much more confident because of all your comments and so does dd. We have talked about it all quite a bit a bit. DD has confirmed that this teacher (unlike any of her other ones) constantly makes comments about her own lack of maths skill and that it is because she is a female. I am going to talk to the head on monday morning.

The same teacher has got into trouble for her "boys are always trouble" comments as well. DD says the teacher regularly repeats "boys, boys, boys its always the boys" whenever there is trouble in the class.

Thank you all for your input.

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senua · 07/02/2010 09:41

Go Keepo!

I think that it is dreadful that this woman is passing on her gender stereotyping to the next generation. She should be stopped in her tracks.

Let us know how you get on.

ArcticFox · 07/02/2010 09:42

I will come and kick that teacher's ass!! Sounds like she needs to go on that diversity course again.

This kind of attitude and pushing girls into "girly" subjects doesnt exactly help to close the earnings gap.

It's quite possible that maths does not appeal to as many girls as it does to boys BUT even if that is true

It's hard to know how much of that is social conditioning of the type your daughter is currently experiencing

Just because more boys than girls like maths, it doesnt mean that no girls like maths

grrrrr [goes away to bang head against wall, and book unborn child into single sex school]

exexpat · 07/02/2010 09:48

Your DD might like to read this article from yesterday's local paper here, about every single girl in a class getting an early A* in Maths GCSE and one of them possibly joining the national maths olympiad team. OK, it's a private school, but I don't think that affects the fact that they are girls and doing brilliantly at maths with the help of high expectations from teachers.

Oh, and my DD (7) went on a G&T maths enrichment thing last term, with two boys from her year. I would be livid if she had been excluded because of her gender. She's doing an art enrichment one next week, and I'm assuming that there will also be boys on that, even though art is seen as a more girly subject...

senua · 07/02/2010 09:51

"Just because more boys than girls like maths, it doesn't mean that no girls like maths"

A lovely piece of logical, mathematical thinking. Shame the teacher isn't able to do it too.

Jux · 07/02/2010 10:15

Adding my outrage too!

I was good at maths, so were my brothers, my dad and my mum. My grandmother was fantastic mathetician.

DH says he's crap frequently, but is actually perfectly competent. He does tell dd that maths is hard (I've told him to stop soooooooo often). DD is in the top group for maths, but believes that she can't do it, even when she can see jolly well that she can.

I'll get that enrichment link and show it to her.

NellyNaggBagg · 07/02/2010 11:00

This is dreadful. It is one reason my DD goes to a girls' school.

ArcticFox · 07/02/2010 11:28

Jux- I think the "maths is hard" thing is another, but really important issue. It is something that is frequently told to children and I think it probably does affect confidence and willingness to tackle the subject. There was even a speaking Barbie that said "math is hard" in a nauseating voice.

I think another issue is that it is also seen as more socially acceptable to be "bad" at maths, and especially so for women (to the extent that it is almost a badge of pride/ rejection of geekery). By contrast, few people like to admit that they struggle to read/write.

TottWriter · 07/02/2010 12:20

I am simply .

Words are failing me. (And I write books. Long ones! )

I have never heard of such a destructive attitude coming from a teacher. It's appalling. Definitely go to the head and cry discrimination, because that's what it is, plain and simple. When I was at primary school I was in the top set for maths, and pitted myself against the top boy (being the top girl it made sense at the time). We were always striving to out-do each other, and probably both did much better as a result. But we were both treated exactly the same by the (slightly intimidating but really lovely) maths teacher. it never even occured to me that someone could think that maths was "not a girls' subject". I mean, a friend of mine had difficulty convincing people that she seriously wanted to do an A-Level in woodwork (and was predicted an A, which she eventually got), but that was when she saw a slightly chauvenistic teacher at the local boys' grammar.

Besides, I thought the latest cliche was that girls were better than boys?

Ponymum · 07/02/2010 12:21

I am so angry! You should make a formal complaint about this, and include the other information that your DD has told you about the sexist comments this teacherss has made.

I won the maths prize in 6th form. The boys ion my class used to ask me to explain things to them when they couldn't understand the (useless) teacher! I went on to become CEO of an engineering company.

I am bringing up my DD to believe that it makes absolutely no difference if you are a boy or a girl - you can achieve anything you set your mind to. But what is the point in this if it is wiped out by teachers with such outrageous attitudes, who actively prevent girls from progressing, and exclude them from opportunities which boys have?

NumptyMum · 07/02/2010 13:00

(teacher not got a good grasp of stats & probability: with a class consisting of 1 girl and the rest all boys, the probability of any 'trouble' being caused by the boys is significantly statistically higher...)

I was good at maths at school mainly due to having a very good encouraging teacher; went on to do A level with a nice but not very competent teacher and lost interest. Teacher makes so much difference... I hope you get this sorted!

Original poster

Keepo · 07/02/2010 13:00

Thanks for all the articles and stories I am passing them all on to dd.

I am at the Barbie that says "Maths is hard"

What the hell is wrong with the world.

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Loopymumsy · 07/02/2010 13:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Miggsie · 07/02/2010 13:10

Dear God, if a teacher had said this to my face I would have exclaimed "WHAT?!" in a voice that could be heard across 3 counties.

DD is in yr 1 and is acknowledged as the best at maths...in the SCHOOL.

I went to a grammar school and you did the subjects you were good at regardless of gender. Maths was 50/50 boy/girl ratio at A level although physcs was more boys.

There was a slight assumption though that girls would do pure/stats and boys would do pure/applied as boys were more likely to do engineering.

That was 30 years ago.

I would have hoped things had moved on.

Perhaps they can recover all the maths books in pink so your DD does not feel to "ungirly".

Yes, I'd complain about the teacher, and DH would be straight round to the head.

stitch · 07/02/2010 13:12

op, someone forgot to tell my mom that. she's been teaching university maths sinc ebefore i was born. currently head of department after supposedly retiring.

oh, and i have two sisters who have degrees in maths.
and an aunt
in fact, the only dumbo amongst us, ie the only who cant do maths, is a surgeon.

Miggsie · 07/02/2010 13:20

Head of maths in the local boy's private school is a woman!

2andcounting · 07/02/2010 13:21

am in total shock- this stupid teacher- gives the rest of us primary schools teachers a bad name- of course 'normal' teachers don't believe this nonsense!!!

Original poster

Keepo · 07/02/2010 13:54

2andcounting I know most teachers don't think that way we haven't ever had this problem before.

I just rang my dds best friends mother and asked if she had noticed this problem. She said she has seen a change in their dds attitude to maths and science this year. She went to ask her dd about it and rang me back to say their dd has also noticed the teacher saying things about girls not being so good at maths. The other mum was also she is a doctor so is rather good at maths and science herself.

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Caz10 · 07/02/2010 14:06

I had the opposite problem almost - hated maths, was pretty rubbish at it, but was repeatedly pushed to take maths and science options because "bright girls can do these things too"!

Am now a primary teacher (with a much better understanding of maths btw!) and actually think that as someone who didn't naturally get maths at school I am in a better position to help those who struggle with it, as I know where they are coming from. A male colleague used to struggle with low achievers in maths because he couldn't see why they couldn't "get" it...

DilysPrice · 07/02/2010 15:04

That this is exactly why I get so wound up about the way that plausible research showing that ON AVERAGE men are better at X and women better at Y gets translated into people talking about Men being better than Women at X.

On average men are taller than women, but Ronnie Corbett is still shorter than Cat Deeley.

Speaking as a non-existent female mathematician you should definitely complain to the head - this is inexcusable.

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