Compulsory maths for all students in England till they're 18

[noblegiraffe]

Says the front page of the Telegraph. Sunak's new big plan.

It's not going to happen, they know it won't happen, and they were told it couldn't happen in 2017 when they read Prof Smith's review into post-16 maths education that they commissioned.

We haven't got enough maths teachers, this is just bullshit posturing. Fret ye not.

Two things wrong with that.

1. GCSEs are designed to have a certain % failing.
2. Just because someone hasn't passed GCSE maths does not mean the time spent teaching them has been entirely wasted.

How about making the study of history, philosophy or politics compulsory? I like the idea of subjects that help kids learn how to think and question.

Yes. I can do all those things, even though I only studied Maths to gcse level and got a B, a very long time ago.

Time is taught early (and easily picked up along the way)
Ditto budgeting as this is simple addition and subtraction and tbh done on a computer with a calculator anyway

Couldn't care less about the bridge!
Look out the window for thw weather

None of those examples convince me that maths for all is necessary post GCSE

Just because someone hasn't passed GCSE maths does not mean the time spent teaching them has been entirely wasted

Well it sort of does! Especially to the student who is then doomed to be trapped in a cycle of taking and retaking.

A good example of someone who doesn't understand statistics.

In the Venn diagram (that's another maths thing :) ) of pupils who left primary school with a good knowledge (not just scraping expected level) of primary school maths against those who don't get Level 4 at GCSE, what proportion of students are in the intersection? Hint - it's not 30%.

Maths lessons (which schools have a maths lesson every day??) are only wasted if a student has made no progress at all, learnt nothing, not even developed any confidence in 5 years. I suggest this is a vanishingly small number.
As Teen says, not getting a 4 at GCSE does not mean your time is wasted, anyway.

As Teen says, not getting a 4 at GCSE does not mean your time is wasted, anyway

Why do people keep saying this. It's necessary for teens to have a maths qual and English qual to do almost anything. I'm sure those students who are taught maths for 10/11 years? aren't so blase about finishing up with a 2 at gcse.

You wouldn't have a house with a window to look out of without maths.

I'm impressed that your maths GCSE covered mathematical modelling of diseases. That's generally at least undergraduate if not postgraduate level.

I assume you're using an electronic device to type in this message? Maths contributed to the creation of said device.
You also appear to be using the internet? That wouldn't exist without maths.

Having a functional skills qualification in maths (not necessarily a GCSE) is useful for future careers.
Not getting a GCSE maths grade 4 at age 16 does not mean your secondary school time is wasted.
Those statements are not mutually exclusive.

What about the people who may never be able to achieve a 4 at GCSE? Waste of time them trying by your reckoning.

Obviously passing the GCSE is better than not passing it, especially as it is used as a gateway into various further qualifications / jobs.

However the fact that my 18yo hasn't for various reasons yet got that magic 4 for maths (or English Lang as it happens) doesn't mean she's not capable of managing her bank account, or working out if a vivarium will fit in her bedroom. So not entirely wasted.

Yes maths important to those who enjoy it and want to study it. Irrelevant to those who don't. I have had plenty of higher education, am interested in most things and I don't need to be an expert on disease modelling to read the papers 🤣 or are you saying only those versed in advanced maths can understand basic disease spread??

Been out of the UK for a long time now so don't know what changes have been made to A Levels but do they still have to do General Studies? If so, couldn't functional/life maths be added to that? That would be useful.

It is weird to think how early children have to specialise in subjects in the UK, missing out on so much other education. Maths (and other things like PE and music and suchlike, not just stem stuff) is compulsory for the whole of education in Finland but in high school you can choose to do basic maths instead of advanced maths, and just do enough to achieve the compulsory number of credits if maths really isn't your thing, but should hopefully be enough to make people functionally numerate in life.

I was responding to your comment that maths was irrelevant after GCSE. You might find it irrelevant, but it's actually quite "useful" in many ways.

I am in my 50s and was pondering the things I learnt at school that has been the most impactful on my life. Obvious things are reading and writing and maths but probably the things that has brought the most tangible benefits are swimming, tennis, team sport and badminton. These are the things that have kept me relatively fit over the years and have helped me build and maintain relationships. They have also helped me enormously with my mental health. Reading has provided much enjoyment too.

I can't understand why you'd need post gcse maths unless you were aiming for a mathsy job. What would be so much more relevant is a module on budgeting a lower income. So many people would benefit from understanding how credit cards and loans work how the interest rates work and mortgages etc. people get themselves into a lot of trouble in some cases not understanding basic budgeting and if this was taught in school I'd respect that a lot more than more maths post 16.

To be fair most highly paid graduate jobs need a level maths with the exception of law (and its hard to get a training contract). Its much easier to get a job in financial services (and they pay way above national average even for entry level jobs). A lot of people in financial services may have unrelated degrees but equally there are lots with degrees in economics, maths and statistics.

Even Martin Lewis has realized that there is no way low earners can budget without falling into actual poverty, hence he is campaigning against the government these days rather than advising us on what mortgage deal, what utility company is appropriate to switch to. Its an earnings crisis, not a cost of living crisis. We have to earn more, there is no way out of it. People in the public sector have to go on strike, people in the private sector have to switch to companies and industries with larger margins. A bank can afford to pay its junior staff far better than a small business even with inflationary pressures. Its why salaries in financial services have risen 30% since 2019

www.fnlondon.com/articles/london-finance-workers-score-record-salary-surge-in-talent-war-jobs-hiring-20220718

People saying ‘why not make art compulsory?’ are missing the point that the economy isn’t struggling due to a lack of people with art qualifications.

It’s not about whether you, personally think you would benefit from more maths - the country would benefit from having more people with maths qualifications at any level than they do currently.

One of the reasons Rishi will not be able to implement this plan is because there aren’t enough maths teachers. There aren’t enough maths teachers because a person with the qualifications to become a maths teacher could enter many other far more lucrative careers - lucrative because of the skills shortage.

@noblegiraffe how do you know the struggling economy is linked to maths?

Of course it isn't.

The only reason our struggling economy is linked to maths is that the dimwit ex PM had a maths degree and still managed to trash the economy.

I don't think the economy is struggling because of a lack of maths skills, I think it's struggling due to a lack of skills full stop ie building trades, computing skills, technical creative skills etc. We need money put into vocational education which could include some maths.

Finance, engineering, computing - big earners - all benefit from a solid maths background.

And it sends the message that the pupil is crap at Maths, which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and sometimes a badge of honour.

Far better to have some kind of compulsory "life-skills numeracy" qualification that the vast majority of people can achieve - those who achieve it early can go onto the GCSE, those who struggle can continue taking numeracy lessons until they pass it. At least then it's something that demonstrates they have a basic ability in numeracy which is a hell of a lot better than a grade 1 or 2 (i.e. FAIL) at GCSE!

How about we set kids up to pass rather than set them up to fail which is what happens with GCSEs where the marking scheme is purposely set to fail a large proportion!

Its a great pity she didn't study a level economics. I don't have a maths degree (only a law one) but I did economics at sixth form so I knew how ridiculous her whole idea was.

Hear hear. Couldn't agree more.

Which is fine for them. What isn't fine is trying to teach (and usually failing) complex mathematics to people with poor numeracy skills who are highly unlikely to find themselves in those high paying careers. They still need numeracy skills for basic jobs and normal life, but are turned off "maths" because of the complex things such as Trig, quadratic equations, surds, pythagoras, Pi, etc. Personally, I think we need to break Maths down into two subjects, one being numeracy concentrating on the basics such as basic percentages, fractions, averages and statistics, and a completely separate "maths" subject aimed at the more complex areas such as trig, pythagoras, equations, etc.