A specialist maths school in every city

[noblegiraffe]

Theresa May is set to announce plans for a specialist maths school in every city, along the lines of the KCL school which is a highly selective maths-based sixth form.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/21/maths-school-every-city-theresa-may-announces-new-technical/

While on paper this sounds good, I wonder about the effect on local schools who are already struggling to recruit qualified maths teachers.

University lecturing and school teaching are very different.

Only politicians suffering from the Dunnig-Kruger syndrome think they are interchangeable

Donna, I agree. Perhaps some Primary school teachers simply extend their own insecurity about maths to their pupils, not understanding that some able children might prefer to be challenged, even if it means they sometimes get things wrong.

(Back when we were looking at prep schools, schools would defend setting in maths very early on, by saying children needed to be taught differently. Some children needed time to get a firm grasp of concepts, without feeling they were behind, whilst others needed to be stretched to keep them engaged. Dividing young children up by ability so early on seemed but actually they may have had a point. The general claim was that children this age did not notice, and that they were happier working at the right pace.)

TiP

"University lecturing and school teaching are very different."

And who is best qualified to teach and engage a very able 17 year old mathematician aiming for a good STEP and an A* in Further Maths?.

Bobochic - you need more than the basics to teach maths and stretch the able. Also, I could have decided to train for primary rather than secondary. I did teacher training in 2001/2. I last studied Maths in 1995. It is not unusual to have a similar gap. There is something to be said for enabling Maths to be studied beyond GCSE level without having to go to A Level Maths.

Donna, I thought of retraining as a maths teacher at about the same time. I have two good A levels and had taken a very maths orientated economics degree. I was one University course short of having enough to teach maths, and it was suggested I spent a year taking an additional, random, University level maths course. Quite how this would have helped me teach GCSE maths, I don't know, so I gave up the idea.

I would have been quite happy to have only taught to GCSE, or undertaken further training to bring my A level knowledge up to date, but these did not seem options. Instead it was suggested I trained as an economics teacher and it was quite possible, if I wanted, that I found myself teaching maths.

At least talented pupils at specialist maths schools should be spared some of the silliness.

Donna - I completely agree with you! But I wondered whether thinking that the fundamentals ought already to be mastered was the flawed thinking behind the poor quality of the teaching programme.

NeedMoreSleep - I am interested in your experience of trying and failing to find proper training to convert to maths teaching. My DD is currently taught by a career changer (former engineer) and another teacher at her school, at lycée level, who taught both the DSSs very happily and successfully, is also a career changer. That particular teacher recently passed her agregation and also teaches maths at a prepa. We, as a family, find both these career teachers to be excellent and very well trained. My DP is pretty fussy about maths teachers and seems, for reasons I don't really fathom, to recall every detail of school maths and can teach it to the DC when and as required - is this something to do with the system?

France may be different. My problem was that only a quarter of my degree was maths. It needed to be one third. One extra course. Plus you could only ever talk to call centres who were reading from a script. If I was going to invest in a year of child care as well as my time, I wanted to be sure I was making the right decision. Pity as I always had an aptitude and had good grades at maths A level, lived in an area that struggled to recruit maths any teachers, and none of the maths/stats I did at University would have been relevant at GCSE.

Its easier now. I think as you can train in a school, so you just need a school to take you, but that was only just coming in when I was looking. I had to do some work in schools at one point, talking to large groups of South London teenagers, and apparently (or at least the teacher with me said) I was fine at getting and keeping their attention. I think I would have liked it, and having school holidays would have helped a lot. I would have wanted to teach maths though, as it is clearer, more cut and dried than school level economics. (And I would have hated teaching primary.)

But all a long time ago.

I don't think it is uncommon for different children to like different teachers. Because different children often need different approaches in order to feel secure about maths.

It's very sad that it was impossible for you to get that relatively small amount of extra training when the teacher shortage was/is so real.

When my DD was tiny I investigated, in fairly recreational way, doing a PGCE in MFL. I couldn't get through the online system - my qualifications (First Class degree in MFL, MBA) didn't tick the box. I suppose I was overqualified? Who knows...

Dividing young children up by ability so early on seemed hmm but actually they may have had a point. The general claim was that children this age did not notice, and that they were happier working at the right pace.

But this method assumes that they can be sorted into groups working at the appropriate pace. Our experiences in prep schools suggest that the sorting often reflects parental input, maturity, practice at home, the pre-prep/infant school from which the child comes etc more than intrinsic ability. It's only around the age of 13 or so that the maths groups have actually seemed to represent more accurately ability. For this reason I would be worried about a school that selected on mathematical "ability" by testing age 10.

I know it has been said already upthread but this could only ever function sensibly in a densely populated urban area. Most of the country just isn't like that and only a tiny percentage would want to board to concentrate on such a narrow curriculum.

A couple of DDs friends seriously considered King's Maths for Sixth, but all decided they'd be happier with a shorter commute and a broader mix.

We used to live in a costal/semi rural area. Many DC had an hour on the bus just to get to a very ordinary school. Asking more of them is just daft, and doubly daft if you offer elite teaching only in urban areas.

I think the first thing students should ask themselves when thinking about KCL is - do I want to do as my a levels maths/further maths/physics with computing or economics at as level and an epq? If the answer is yes, then the school won't be restrictive and it's a good place to consider. If they want to do more, it will and it's not the school for them.

The second question to ask themselves is 'do I really love maths?' because there is a huge amount of it, far more than at most sixth forms.

NeedMoreSleep - I am on favour of KCL and think it does offer something good and needed. I was just saying that I don't think it's presence would be detrimental , in terms of nicking teaching staff or good students, at any significant level.

I didn't realise they took a students access to a strong maths department into account.

They have a later start to allow for students travelling from further away.

BTW the original article seems very confused.

The technology institutes are not going to be aimed at academic high fliers, but are alternatives to lower tier university courses and apprenticeships. They are university alternatives.

Specialist maths schools would be something different, and would presumably be primarily aimed at academic kids as the KCL sixth form is.

The article mentions Brexit but the only connection to Brexit is that the technology institutes are part of the industrial strategy plan aimed at mitigating the damage to the financial, technology and science sectors caused by Brexit. However the institutes and any new schools would not start for quite a while, so in reality they're not likely to have much impact on repercussions from Brexit.

Oh, of course ... there's going to be lots of numerate people twiddling their thumbs when brexit bites, they'll want to do maths teaching as a sort of national service or something.

For those thinking that a specialist education needs to be narrow are mistaken.
Yes, the emphasis is on the subject specialism and in my dd school a good 2 thirds of the day from 8.am - 7.30 ish is concentrated on the subject which you'd expect.
However, there are choices at GCSE the same as any other school, obviously not to the extent that some private or grammar offer, but typical of a state secondary.
E.g she couldn't take triple science, or PE but obviously she has to take the compulsory subjects of maths English and single science.
She is expected to take a language and a Humanity subject.
Art and Drama are offered too.
The only difference is that the specialism is compulsory at GCSE and A level, which is also expected and obviously it's what the dc want.

I do think that any child choosing such an education needs to be sure it's what they want to do and obviously some subjects/ choices are sacrificed, but it's not as narrow as some would believe ime