I could not agree more with this. When i left school 46 years ago i had a miserable CSE level of maths, wasnt interested and couldnt see the value. Now, at the end of my career which for the last 20 years has been in the field of cyber security, dealing with complexity, uncertainty, volatility and increasing hyper-connectivity, making consistently good decisions is very hard indeed. Maths and pariculalry statistics and probability have become crucial enablers of making sense of the world and placing bets on likerly outcomes - both positive and negative (because thats all anyone is doing do in such a world, no matter how confidently they speak). We need to be expanding not reducing our efforts here!
This is great. I know books abound, but is there a more compact collection of examples like this collated anywhere? As a mathematician working in drug development I’m not short of personal examples, but I don’t think people, and even students considering A-Level Maths/Further Maths, realize the breadth of impact on their lives.
I'm not sure to be honest. There's a lot of good writing about maths around these days (places like Quanta and lots of Substacks), but I don't know if there's a single place which focuses on the impact end of things ... I'll have a think
I really don’t understand this government. It seems they are guided by an ideology that doesn’t want success for the U.K. it just wants a levelling down to the lowest denominator. Just look at what they’re doing to schools and education.
I’m actually starting to think they are just bad faith actors running the country into the dust.
They’re definitely a one term government now but they can do so much damage in the next 4.5 years. I’m glad I didn’t vote for them (as I nearly did) but there must be so much buyers regret out there now.
My only hope is they get hammered in a few by-elections. Get rid if starmer then eat themselves in the next two years.
I used to work in life-sciences and losing the AZ vaccine facility yesterday says everything about the level of incompetence.
To make the best case for them, they are operating in a challenging environment, and some of the stuff about trying to free up planning consents makes sense I think. But yes, I agree about a lot of the education stuff (the anti-academy stuff for example)
I agree on the planning side but I’ll also believe it when I see it…. I’m just so frustrated that their actions don’t match their words. As you say, the educational programmes they’re scrapping are peanuts in the big picture and the school reforms are a backward step just when they’re starting to deliver. STEM should be our top priority and it’s open to anyone.
I know this is the smallest possible point, but I'm infuriated by the fact they've put the new maths specialist schools on pause. There's nothing *anti-meritocratic* about specialist maths schools (if you believe meritocracy should be the deciding factor). Even if Philipson is genuinely focused on better life chances for the most disadvantaged children -- and I don't disagree that that should be the priority, given budget constraints -- getting rid of brilliant, free maths education is not the way to do it! Disadvantaged kids who have a natural talent for maths are going to be screwed over by it! Aaaargh!
Yes, totally agree. I'm focusing on maths because that's what I know, but I think there've been cuts to similar programmes in other places too (Latin, CS). One of the frustrating things though is that maths should be a relatively level playing field - it's not like a subject where having fancier labs or being able to take classes to the theatre is going to help, for example, But I'm definitely not thinking about this as a Science v Arts thing
No, fair point. I’m just beginning to suspect that Philipson is like the worst sort of state school teacher: the sort who actively resents any ambition, any striving towards excellence. Who sees that, *in itself*, as some sort of betrayal of the working class (how? Why? Didn’t Philipson go to Oxford herself? Funny that. Has she clocked how many genuinely disadvantaged kids get into top unis from maths schools?) I’m instinctively a Labour supporter and generally support this government, given the mountains of crap they have to climb and which they played no part in constructing. But Philipson is an ideologue, and she’s plain wrong on this.
Thanks for writing this. Very difficult to understand what measures like this are meant to achieve - cf. the in-year scrapping of a similar scheme for Latin. I suspect that if you could fully account for the costs of disruption/switching/alternative options, you would find that it doesn’t even save the sum advertised.
I have bemoaned the paucity of statistical education for years, finding it necessary to teach remedially at Level 4 (1st year undergraduate) in a non-maths course.
At risk of being contrarian, I would say that this now reducing approach being at "higher-level" is too late in the educational journey, and instead should be part of a pervasive curriculum change for Key Stage 4 (GCSE, giving Level 1 or 2 qualifications).
Sure, I'm not saying that we shouldn't look to do more for other age groups as well - I'm just in a position where A Level changes are more immediately visible, plus that's where the specific cut is being proposed
Unfortunately the education department seems to have been infected with an attitude that anything previous governments did (seemingly including the Blair/Brown one) was bad
Not sure, to be honest. There's lobbying going on from some of the maths societies etc, but of course that may not have much effect. I think like anything else it's really just spreading the word, contacting MPs if you feel motivated and so on
I could not agree more with this. When i left school 46 years ago i had a miserable CSE level of maths, wasnt interested and couldnt see the value. Now, at the end of my career which for the last 20 years has been in the field of cyber security, dealing with complexity, uncertainty, volatility and increasing hyper-connectivity, making consistently good decisions is very hard indeed. Maths and pariculalry statistics and probability have become crucial enablers of making sense of the world and placing bets on likerly outcomes - both positive and negative (because thats all anyone is doing do in such a world, no matter how confidently they speak). We need to be expanding not reducing our efforts here!
This is great. I know books abound, but is there a more compact collection of examples like this collated anywhere? As a mathematician working in drug development I’m not short of personal examples, but I don’t think people, and even students considering A-Level Maths/Further Maths, realize the breadth of impact on their lives.
I'm not sure to be honest. There's a lot of good writing about maths around these days (places like Quanta and lots of Substacks), but I don't know if there's a single place which focuses on the impact end of things ... I'll have a think
I really don’t understand this government. It seems they are guided by an ideology that doesn’t want success for the U.K. it just wants a levelling down to the lowest denominator. Just look at what they’re doing to schools and education.
I’m actually starting to think they are just bad faith actors running the country into the dust.
They’re definitely a one term government now but they can do so much damage in the next 4.5 years. I’m glad I didn’t vote for them (as I nearly did) but there must be so much buyers regret out there now.
My only hope is they get hammered in a few by-elections. Get rid if starmer then eat themselves in the next two years.
I used to work in life-sciences and losing the AZ vaccine facility yesterday says everything about the level of incompetence.
To make the best case for them, they are operating in a challenging environment, and some of the stuff about trying to free up planning consents makes sense I think. But yes, I agree about a lot of the education stuff (the anti-academy stuff for example)
I agree on the planning side but I’ll also believe it when I see it…. I’m just so frustrated that their actions don’t match their words. As you say, the educational programmes they’re scrapping are peanuts in the big picture and the school reforms are a backward step just when they’re starting to deliver. STEM should be our top priority and it’s open to anyone.
I know this is the smallest possible point, but I'm infuriated by the fact they've put the new maths specialist schools on pause. There's nothing *anti-meritocratic* about specialist maths schools (if you believe meritocracy should be the deciding factor). Even if Philipson is genuinely focused on better life chances for the most disadvantaged children -- and I don't disagree that that should be the priority, given budget constraints -- getting rid of brilliant, free maths education is not the way to do it! Disadvantaged kids who have a natural talent for maths are going to be screwed over by it! Aaaargh!
Yes, totally agree. I'm focusing on maths because that's what I know, but I think there've been cuts to similar programmes in other places too (Latin, CS). One of the frustrating things though is that maths should be a relatively level playing field - it's not like a subject where having fancier labs or being able to take classes to the theatre is going to help, for example, But I'm definitely not thinking about this as a Science v Arts thing
No, fair point. I’m just beginning to suspect that Philipson is like the worst sort of state school teacher: the sort who actively resents any ambition, any striving towards excellence. Who sees that, *in itself*, as some sort of betrayal of the working class (how? Why? Didn’t Philipson go to Oxford herself? Funny that. Has she clocked how many genuinely disadvantaged kids get into top unis from maths schools?) I’m instinctively a Labour supporter and generally support this government, given the mountains of crap they have to climb and which they played no part in constructing. But Philipson is an ideologue, and she’s plain wrong on this.
Thanks for writing this. Very difficult to understand what measures like this are meant to achieve - cf. the in-year scrapping of a similar scheme for Latin. I suspect that if you could fully account for the costs of disruption/switching/alternative options, you would find that it doesn’t even save the sum advertised.
Thanks - good to get it off my chest! And yes, I agree that the Latin story is very similar (there may be others as well that I'm not so aware of)
I have bemoaned the paucity of statistical education for years, finding it necessary to teach remedially at Level 4 (1st year undergraduate) in a non-maths course.
At risk of being contrarian, I would say that this now reducing approach being at "higher-level" is too late in the educational journey, and instead should be part of a pervasive curriculum change for Key Stage 4 (GCSE, giving Level 1 or 2 qualifications).
Sure, I'm not saying that we shouldn't look to do more for other age groups as well - I'm just in a position where A Level changes are more immediately visible, plus that's where the specific cut is being proposed
Then "do both" may be our consensus!
Unfortunately the education department seems to have been infected with an attitude that anything previous governments did (seemingly including the Blair/Brown one) was bad
I assume it's coming more from politicians than from civil servants, but of course I could be wrong!
Thank you for writing this Oliver. Is there anything that individuals can do to try to get the government to change course on this?
Not sure, to be honest. There's lobbying going on from some of the maths societies etc, but of course that may not have much effect. I think like anything else it's really just spreading the word, contacting MPs if you feel motivated and so on
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Well, not exactly the same!