Keep them in school for no good reason other than off the unemployment figures. Some people are just terrible at Mathematics, why disrupt others education?
I guess he liked maths at school and thinks everyone needs to do what he did to be successful.
I ditched maths the second I could and I’m an architect now, let kids work to their strengths.
This is such bullshit, I studied maths for each of the 23 years I was in school up until my GCSE’s and that was all I needed.
Ah yes, all that maths we were taught that every single person definitely uses every day in the real world.
I did maths and further maths at a level and frankly, no one needs any if that information, it’s nit useful at all if you don’t intend to study maths further. This is stupid
I studied maths at university and use it on a semi-regular basis in work…but I don’t see the point of this.
A level maths isn’t straightforward, and some people struggle with it as it is. I fully agree with doing it to GCSE level for the exposure to logical problem solving, and maths is a fantastic subject, with a far reaching impact when taught well but I can’t see the clear benefit for 90% of people. It’ll just force them to struggle through something they’re never likely to rely on in the future anyway.
I think a GCSE in personal finance would be 9/10ths more beneficial.
I went to a school in a deprived area and there was so few of us taking higher maths at GCSE we had to stay behind after school for lessons as it wasn’t possible for them to run the class during school time. How about fixing the causes of lack of maths skills in deprived children instead of asking everyone to continue studying it? Wanker.
So most kids would only be able to study two A levels now? Oh god I’m way out of touch, there are T Levels now?!
How about teaching them budgets mortgages bills how to run a household how to rent a property how not to get into debt etc!
Really hard to learn maths when you’re shaking with cold and your stomach hurts because you’re hungry. Work on that first you fucking toff.
Today children, we’re going to learn about odds.
We’re going to calculate the odds that Ropey Rishi pulls another u-turn.
The level of maths that people will need for their future should have been taught by age 16, after that kids should be able to choose what they want to do. They should focus on improving the quality of the maths teaching and making sure everyone has that basic level, like being able to work out percentages in a shop etc.
Bad idea. Some people are not inclined towards Maths, and after 16 is the time for people to start to choose the direction they want in life. And for many people, they only need a basic knowledge of Maths to get by. This is from someone who did Maths A Level (or would have done if not for the pandemic) and does quite a bit of Maths at University studying Accounting.
If Sunak believes that GCSE Maths fails to equip many young people with the numerical skills they need, he needs to focus on raising standards at GCSE.
Sounds like a shit idea.
Getting to do maths in a class with all the people that didn’t give a shit gone was amazing,
Oh well, I would have still had further maths I guess.
Is the corporate tyrant entering his Mad King phase before a general election crushes his name to dust?
1 in 20 of the population has dyscalculia or, on average, 1.3 students per class. This is just going to further disadvantage them in their education and prolong their anguish.
I don’t want to though
I have my own interests
I’ve learnt more maths than I will ever need. And I want to do the EPQ.
Why.
Literally the only point of this policy is to have something to say that isn’t about immigration, the NHS, skyrocketing poverty, or how fucked the Tories are in the polls. “New mission” my arse.
I did A-level maths, and I found it super interesting and useful for what I ended up doing. But for the vast majority of people, it really would be useless. Now, that’s not to say that all learning has to have a hard purpose, maths for maths sake can be a useful way to learn to think about things, and being able to do proof by induction will probably make you better at the simpler stuff. But I kinda still feel like this is pointless lip service.
I did pretty well in my GCSE maths, got a B.
A-Level maths was just too difficult for me though.
Feel sorry for all the kids that are going to have to suffer through it.
Why?
I got an A in GCSE maths and done it at A-level with a C and that shits hard lol, some people just dont enjoy or want to study it.
Think thats fair enough
Why?
I did alright in school but I would have been no better at maths at 18 than I was at 16. It wasn’t my subject and it never will be.
What does he think is going to magically happen in those 2 years that didn’t happen in the 16 previous?
Got an A* for GCSE maths. Hated A level so much that I dropped it.
Sure.. great idea, because we have all used those linear and quadratic equations ALL the fucking time since we left school! /s
How about fix the already broken, due to tory cuts, education system first. How out of touch from reality is this man seriously, does he realise there’s a huge shortage of maths teachers as it is
I’m OK with this so long as the focus is on numeracy rather than just maths. So many adults in this country have a piss poor grasp of even the simplest maths that affects their everyday lives.
It’s a pointless stupid idea but anyway – who is meant to teach all these extra lessons? You can’t recruit decent Maths teachers for love nor money as it is. It’s a massive shortage subject. They literally don’t exist and are leaving in droves anyway. What stupid bullshit.
Blimey, I’m glad I’m not still in school, I absolutely hated Maths and just wasn’t that good at it. I haven’t used the majority of the Maths I was taught up to my GCSEs, I don’t think an extra 2 years will make any difference.
People excel at different things. There’s no point forcing teenagers who either aren’t good at, or are simply completely uninterested in Maths to do it at A-Level. You’re just going to end up with teenagers leaving education with less qualifications because they didn’t get to choose as many as they originally could have, and failed Maths because they didn’t want to do it.
But why? They are pretty much saying that most adults only capable of basic mathematics but I don’t really see the problem there, for the vast majority of people they’ll never need anything more.
I probably finished secondary around 5 years ago and I can’t think of a single situation I’ve needed to use anything other than basic maths.
He really can’t see outside of his own personal choices and experiences can he?
OK, so a few points:
1. Regarding the “get everybody up to some baseline”: this is already the case. People who fail GCSE maths have to keep retaking it (or alternative maths qualifications) until they leave at 18. This is, somewhat predictably, monumentally unsuccessful, with pass rates so low as to verge on the absurd.
2. Regarding the idea of getting people to study more advanced mathematics: this is hopeless, as the majority of students reach the age of 16 without a solid understanding of GCSE maths.
3. Regarding all of the suggestions about putting [something that isn’t maths but is useful by the standards of the commenter] in there instead: those things are already taught, and have been for decades. If you don’t remember being taught them, that’s because you forgot, because tax law (or whatever) didn’t sound particularly interesting when you were 14.
4. There are ~800,000 kids in each school year. If this were actually a significant change, that means that you need to fit in ~25,000 more classes worth of maths lessons. At three hours of lessons per week, that’s ~75,000 teacher hours per week. On a typical five hours of lessons per day schedule, that’s ~3,000 full-time teachers’ worth, per year, so ~6,000 in total. Given that there’s already a shortage of maths teachers, where exactly are these extra teachers coming from?
At the risk of sounding like a massive Edwardian, I do think there is a benefit to teaching maths and keeping people involved with it. It can really help with your thinking and reasoning, and keeps your mind sharp. Not everyone will excel at it, but sometimes it is good to be forced to try at a difficult task so you can build some resilience and character.
No you might not use it everyday, but is that really the sole point of education? We should be aiming to build well rounded and capable young students, stuffing them through the path of least resistance hardly seems fair on them in the long run. If we don’t think there’s more to education than stuff that is directly applicable to everyday life why not stream children into ware house working, accountancy or nuclear physics curriculums from age 10 and save teaching them things they won’t need.
I would argue even that A Level maths is actually quite useful to have for many jobs. Certainly any STEM career. I think in a way our education system fails students by pushing those who are less academically inclined in to softer subjects (or outright useless ones) too early.
Is he wanting kids learning the kind of thing they are unlikely to use or the “Janet is a charge nurse with 39 patients in A and E. The hospital has 6 beds available and 150 occupied by people who could leave if Rishi focused on the social care sector rather than tripe like this. How underpaid is Janet?” type?
Functional life maths all the way.
Ala, Martin Lewis stumping up his own textbooks for schools.
Most of the comments here have a negative perception of Maths and are generally sceptical of the use of Maths in our society. The issue we first need to recognise is that we need to rapidly increase the number of highly skilled workers in this country, and the vast majority of this highly skilled work has a significant math element to it. Even Psychology requires a good knowledge of statistics!
The second point we must recognise is that most people can learn maths. I know many people will think that they are not mathematically gifted, but believing in that implies that mathematical skill depends on our DNA, which is factually untrue.
I disagree with the principle of keeping students in school until they are 18. I think they should be able to leave school early if they want. And I also disagree with forcing them to study maths until 18. Giving them the freedom to leave also gives them the freedom to stay to learn.
As a Maths Tutor with many years experience, in my personal experience, I think it’s better if we improve our maths education from the bottom up, with a focus on primary schools and then secondary schools. Generally, it is better to teach a concept correctly the first time, rather than failing and retrying to teach the same concepts again. The issue with Sunak’s proposal is that I don’t think Sunak is going to make these students study A-level maths as most students are not capable but instead he is going to make these students relearn some advanced variant of GCSE again. And as mentioned previously, retrying to reteach the same concepts again probably isn’t going to go well for the students, it’s much better to get them to learn properly the first time round.
Trying to get someone to fix this financial fuck up you and your homies created Rish?
I think if I were at school now and read this it’d be enough to push me over the edge. I was very lucky to do my GCSEs where maths coursework was a thigh and accounted for, I believe, 50%. My maths teacher basically did it for me and I cried the entire of both exams. I scraped a c and have thankfully never had to do it again!
I’m sort of in favour of this, but people should be able to choose between basic, useful, real-world maths and advanced maths. Making someone who struggles with GCSE maths anyway go through things like differential equations and complex numbers, if I’m right in thinking they’re still on the A-Level curriculum, is just going to lead to misery. The jump from GCSE to A-Level is really large from what I recall and I do think there’s some beyond-GCSE but less-than-A-Level maths that would be worth teaching.
I also think the option to take statistics, rather than just pure maths, would be good if it’s presented in real world contexts. Might help with media literacy and understanding how numbers can be fudged and misrepresented to fit an agenda, as well as being able critically analyse things like polling data presented in the news.
Don’t agree with the number but definitely think maths needs to be better in this country.
Perhaps if it was then headlines with bullshit statistics wouldn’t be touted so much.
41 comments
Keep them in school for no good reason other than off the unemployment figures. Some people are just terrible at Mathematics, why disrupt others education?
I guess he liked maths at school and thinks everyone needs to do what he did to be successful.
I ditched maths the second I could and I’m an architect now, let kids work to their strengths.
This is such bullshit, I studied maths for each of the 23 years I was in school up until my GCSE’s and that was all I needed.
Ah yes, all that maths we were taught that every single person definitely uses every day in the real world.
I did maths and further maths at a level and frankly, no one needs any if that information, it’s nit useful at all if you don’t intend to study maths further. This is stupid
I studied maths at university and use it on a semi-regular basis in work…but I don’t see the point of this.
A level maths isn’t straightforward, and some people struggle with it as it is. I fully agree with doing it to GCSE level for the exposure to logical problem solving, and maths is a fantastic subject, with a far reaching impact when taught well but I can’t see the clear benefit for 90% of people. It’ll just force them to struggle through something they’re never likely to rely on in the future anyway.
I think a GCSE in personal finance would be 9/10ths more beneficial.
I went to a school in a deprived area and there was so few of us taking higher maths at GCSE we had to stay behind after school for lessons as it wasn’t possible for them to run the class during school time. How about fixing the causes of lack of maths skills in deprived children instead of asking everyone to continue studying it? Wanker.
So most kids would only be able to study two A levels now? Oh god I’m way out of touch, there are T Levels now?!
How about teaching them budgets mortgages bills how to run a household how to rent a property how not to get into debt etc!
Really hard to learn maths when you’re shaking with cold and your stomach hurts because you’re hungry. Work on that first you fucking toff.
Today children, we’re going to learn about odds.
We’re going to calculate the odds that Ropey Rishi pulls another u-turn.
The level of maths that people will need for their future should have been taught by age 16, after that kids should be able to choose what they want to do. They should focus on improving the quality of the maths teaching and making sure everyone has that basic level, like being able to work out percentages in a shop etc.
Bad idea. Some people are not inclined towards Maths, and after 16 is the time for people to start to choose the direction they want in life. And for many people, they only need a basic knowledge of Maths to get by. This is from someone who did Maths A Level (or would have done if not for the pandemic) and does quite a bit of Maths at University studying Accounting.
If Sunak believes that GCSE Maths fails to equip many young people with the numerical skills they need, he needs to focus on raising standards at GCSE.
Sounds like a shit idea.
Getting to do maths in a class with all the people that didn’t give a shit gone was amazing,
Oh well, I would have still had further maths I guess.
Is the corporate tyrant entering his Mad King phase before a general election crushes his name to dust?
1 in 20 of the population has dyscalculia or, on average, 1.3 students per class. This is just going to further disadvantage them in their education and prolong their anguish.
I don’t want to though
I have my own interests
I’ve learnt more maths than I will ever need. And I want to do the EPQ.
Why.
Literally the only point of this policy is to have something to say that isn’t about immigration, the NHS, skyrocketing poverty, or how fucked the Tories are in the polls. “New mission” my arse.
I did A-level maths, and I found it super interesting and useful for what I ended up doing. But for the vast majority of people, it really would be useless. Now, that’s not to say that all learning has to have a hard purpose, maths for maths sake can be a useful way to learn to think about things, and being able to do proof by induction will probably make you better at the simpler stuff. But I kinda still feel like this is pointless lip service.
I did pretty well in my GCSE maths, got a B.
A-Level maths was just too difficult for me though.
Feel sorry for all the kids that are going to have to suffer through it.
Why?
I got an A in GCSE maths and done it at A-level with a C and that shits hard lol, some people just dont enjoy or want to study it.
Think thats fair enough
Why?
I did alright in school but I would have been no better at maths at 18 than I was at 16. It wasn’t my subject and it never will be.
What does he think is going to magically happen in those 2 years that didn’t happen in the 16 previous?
Got an A* for GCSE maths. Hated A level so much that I dropped it.
Sure.. great idea, because we have all used those linear and quadratic equations ALL the fucking time since we left school! /s
How about fix the already broken, due to tory cuts, education system first. How out of touch from reality is this man seriously, does he realise there’s a huge shortage of maths teachers as it is
I’m OK with this so long as the focus is on numeracy rather than just maths. So many adults in this country have a piss poor grasp of even the simplest maths that affects their everyday lives.
It’s a pointless stupid idea but anyway – who is meant to teach all these extra lessons? You can’t recruit decent Maths teachers for love nor money as it is. It’s a massive shortage subject. They literally don’t exist and are leaving in droves anyway. What stupid bullshit.
Blimey, I’m glad I’m not still in school, I absolutely hated Maths and just wasn’t that good at it. I haven’t used the majority of the Maths I was taught up to my GCSEs, I don’t think an extra 2 years will make any difference.
People excel at different things. There’s no point forcing teenagers who either aren’t good at, or are simply completely uninterested in Maths to do it at A-Level. You’re just going to end up with teenagers leaving education with less qualifications because they didn’t get to choose as many as they originally could have, and failed Maths because they didn’t want to do it.
But why? They are pretty much saying that most adults only capable of basic mathematics but I don’t really see the problem there, for the vast majority of people they’ll never need anything more.
I probably finished secondary around 5 years ago and I can’t think of a single situation I’ve needed to use anything other than basic maths.
He really can’t see outside of his own personal choices and experiences can he?
OK, so a few points:
1. Regarding the “get everybody up to some baseline”: this is already the case. People who fail GCSE maths have to keep retaking it (or alternative maths qualifications) until they leave at 18. This is, somewhat predictably, monumentally unsuccessful, with pass rates so low as to verge on the absurd.
2. Regarding the idea of getting people to study more advanced mathematics: this is hopeless, as the majority of students reach the age of 16 without a solid understanding of GCSE maths.
3. Regarding all of the suggestions about putting [something that isn’t maths but is useful by the standards of the commenter] in there instead: those things are already taught, and have been for decades. If you don’t remember being taught them, that’s because you forgot, because tax law (or whatever) didn’t sound particularly interesting when you were 14.
4. There are ~800,000 kids in each school year. If this were actually a significant change, that means that you need to fit in ~25,000 more classes worth of maths lessons. At three hours of lessons per week, that’s ~75,000 teacher hours per week. On a typical five hours of lessons per day schedule, that’s ~3,000 full-time teachers’ worth, per year, so ~6,000 in total. Given that there’s already a shortage of maths teachers, where exactly are these extra teachers coming from?
At the risk of sounding like a massive Edwardian, I do think there is a benefit to teaching maths and keeping people involved with it. It can really help with your thinking and reasoning, and keeps your mind sharp. Not everyone will excel at it, but sometimes it is good to be forced to try at a difficult task so you can build some resilience and character.
No you might not use it everyday, but is that really the sole point of education? We should be aiming to build well rounded and capable young students, stuffing them through the path of least resistance hardly seems fair on them in the long run. If we don’t think there’s more to education than stuff that is directly applicable to everyday life why not stream children into ware house working, accountancy or nuclear physics curriculums from age 10 and save teaching them things they won’t need.
I would argue even that A Level maths is actually quite useful to have for many jobs. Certainly any STEM career. I think in a way our education system fails students by pushing those who are less academically inclined in to softer subjects (or outright useless ones) too early.
Is he wanting kids learning the kind of thing they are unlikely to use or the “Janet is a charge nurse with 39 patients in A and E. The hospital has 6 beds available and 150 occupied by people who could leave if Rishi focused on the social care sector rather than tripe like this. How underpaid is Janet?” type?
Functional life maths all the way.
Ala, Martin Lewis stumping up his own textbooks for schools.
Most of the comments here have a negative perception of Maths and are generally sceptical of the use of Maths in our society. The issue we first need to recognise is that we need to rapidly increase the number of highly skilled workers in this country, and the vast majority of this highly skilled work has a significant math element to it. Even Psychology requires a good knowledge of statistics!
The second point we must recognise is that most people can learn maths. I know many people will think that they are not mathematically gifted, but believing in that implies that mathematical skill depends on our DNA, which is factually untrue.
I disagree with the principle of keeping students in school until they are 18. I think they should be able to leave school early if they want. And I also disagree with forcing them to study maths until 18. Giving them the freedom to leave also gives them the freedom to stay to learn.
As a Maths Tutor with many years experience, in my personal experience, I think it’s better if we improve our maths education from the bottom up, with a focus on primary schools and then secondary schools. Generally, it is better to teach a concept correctly the first time, rather than failing and retrying to teach the same concepts again. The issue with Sunak’s proposal is that I don’t think Sunak is going to make these students study A-level maths as most students are not capable but instead he is going to make these students relearn some advanced variant of GCSE again. And as mentioned previously, retrying to reteach the same concepts again probably isn’t going to go well for the students, it’s much better to get them to learn properly the first time round.
Trying to get someone to fix this financial fuck up you and your homies created Rish?
I think if I were at school now and read this it’d be enough to push me over the edge. I was very lucky to do my GCSEs where maths coursework was a thigh and accounted for, I believe, 50%. My maths teacher basically did it for me and I cried the entire of both exams. I scraped a c and have thankfully never had to do it again!
I’m sort of in favour of this, but people should be able to choose between basic, useful, real-world maths and advanced maths. Making someone who struggles with GCSE maths anyway go through things like differential equations and complex numbers, if I’m right in thinking they’re still on the A-Level curriculum, is just going to lead to misery. The jump from GCSE to A-Level is really large from what I recall and I do think there’s some beyond-GCSE but less-than-A-Level maths that would be worth teaching.
I also think the option to take statistics, rather than just pure maths, would be good if it’s presented in real world contexts. Might help with media literacy and understanding how numbers can be fudged and misrepresented to fit an agenda, as well as being able critically analyse things like polling data presented in the news.
Don’t agree with the number but definitely think maths needs to be better in this country.
Perhaps if it was then headlines with bullshit statistics wouldn’t be touted so much.