Agree heartily with all of this. As someone who abandoned maths with relief at 16, took a degree in English Literature, and only came to terms with its crucial importance - and indeed unavoidability - when running my own business in my late 20s, I entirely support the idea of maths continuing until 18. To all of the excellent suggestions here, I would add the application of maths to citizenship. Many students leave school with no understanding of - for instance - how the tax system works and how much tax they may pay; what changes in interest rates mean to borrowing costs (and why for instance you should avoid borrowing on a credit card); why starting saving regular small amounts early can make a huge difference in later life; etc. etc.
Yes - exactly this. I had clicked through from the email to suggest VAT, PAYE, self assessment tax returns, mortgage vs rent and how a mortgage works, and pensions. I think Oliver's list is great - and I'm going to follow many links from the post - but I think the basic maths requirements for living a life should be a priority.
I sort of agree with this, but I wouldn't lead with it, I think, because I think maths is broader than that! I think the stuff to do with interest rates and things like that would naturally come up in the "exponential growth" part, but I feel like stuff on the mechanics of the tax system might live better in PSHE or similar, important though it is.
Yes, maybe it would be better in PSHE, but then would it be ignored as a non-examined "joke" subject? The length of time we spend telling youngish people who freelance for us how to claim expenses, separate off the VAT etc is annoying when basic maths-for-life competence would be more useful to them than the trig, mechanics and calculus they learnt at school!
I think the Core Maths (AS qualification with UCAS points) qualification is essentially this - although I haven't taught it I believe it contains Fermi estimation and other practical techniques. My understanding is that the original intention when it was introduced was to be for students between resit and A Level study. I believe uptake is growing, albeit patchy. My impression is that it needs to be required by universities for applications to Maths related degrees for to really make a difference. As a Maths teacher generally I am in favour of it, but obviously delivery is an issue with the shortages.
Yes, I think that Core Maths is definitely valuable and in a similar space too - but I'm assuming that it takes more weekly hours than I'm talking about, so it might not be feasible to simply ask people to take that on top of e.g. 3 arts and humanities A levels?
I feel there is a 4th group, which is those students for whom AS level maths over two years would be appropriate. I have a 17 year old daughter doing this, and it is a good option for more able students who can't fit maths into their A level selections but want to keep developing maths skills.
Yes, that's fair, I forgot those - I think they would come in the first category, which should have probably been "people doing A or AS" .. so wouldn't be the target market for this stuff.
Indeed. Compulsory maths to 18 might also encourage more schools to offer AS maths, which would be a good thing. Daughter's state comprehensive runs the class as an extra, which means going in at 8am twice a week - it's great that they offer it, but it would attract a lot more people during school hours!
Interesting proposals. I always wonder how some of this would work with the roughly one third (?) of the cohort who get less than a grade 4 at GCSE, as opposed to the majority who pass GCSE maths but then choose to take it no further. But then I'm an engineer not a teacher. Oh, and I've bought Numbercrunch but not yet read it...
Slightly off topic, I was amused by the AI generated header picture, showing the oft-noted tendency to get the number of fingers wrong on human hands. As an engineer, I consider myself to be pretty good at many aspects of maths, but I am truly terrible at mental arithmetic where counting fingers can be very effective.
Gowers's suggestions have a fair bit of overlap with Olly's (Fermi estimation, probability/statistics) but also some differences (Gowers is more "solve this problem" rather than "learn this technique"; Olly covers more "maths in art"). Gowers also has a long list of concrete proposed questions, which might interest readers of this.
Yes, of course these discussions do seem to come round every so often, and I'd certainly be happy if we ended up with some version of the Gowers proposals instead!
Excellent as usual. For many, I think if you can’t see the application and value of what you are being taught, learning any topic seems pointless or insurmountable. Two thoughts whilst reading this:
1) Einstein: “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.”
2) Assume you have read and enjoyed “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid” by Douglas Hofstadter?
Thanks. And yes, I definitely agree that you need to know some wider context and the point of what you are doing (I've certainly been put off topics in the past by not being able to see the big picture). I have read that book, but not for a long time - it's good isn't it!
Agree heartily with all of this. As someone who abandoned maths with relief at 16, took a degree in English Literature, and only came to terms with its crucial importance - and indeed unavoidability - when running my own business in my late 20s, I entirely support the idea of maths continuing until 18. To all of the excellent suggestions here, I would add the application of maths to citizenship. Many students leave school with no understanding of - for instance - how the tax system works and how much tax they may pay; what changes in interest rates mean to borrowing costs (and why for instance you should avoid borrowing on a credit card); why starting saving regular small amounts early can make a huge difference in later life; etc. etc.
Yes - exactly this. I had clicked through from the email to suggest VAT, PAYE, self assessment tax returns, mortgage vs rent and how a mortgage works, and pensions. I think Oliver's list is great - and I'm going to follow many links from the post - but I think the basic maths requirements for living a life should be a priority.
I sort of agree with this, but I wouldn't lead with it, I think, because I think maths is broader than that! I think the stuff to do with interest rates and things like that would naturally come up in the "exponential growth" part, but I feel like stuff on the mechanics of the tax system might live better in PSHE or similar, important though it is.
Yes, maybe it would be better in PSHE, but then would it be ignored as a non-examined "joke" subject? The length of time we spend telling youngish people who freelance for us how to claim expenses, separate off the VAT etc is annoying when basic maths-for-life competence would be more useful to them than the trig, mechanics and calculus they learnt at school!
I think the Core Maths (AS qualification with UCAS points) qualification is essentially this - although I haven't taught it I believe it contains Fermi estimation and other practical techniques. My understanding is that the original intention when it was introduced was to be for students between resit and A Level study. I believe uptake is growing, albeit patchy. My impression is that it needs to be required by universities for applications to Maths related degrees for to really make a difference. As a Maths teacher generally I am in favour of it, but obviously delivery is an issue with the shortages.
https://amsp.org.uk/universities/post-16-specifications/core-maths/#:~:text=Core%20Maths%20is%20intended%20for,other%20qualifications%2C%20including%20vocational%20courses.
Yes, I think that Core Maths is definitely valuable and in a similar space too - but I'm assuming that it takes more weekly hours than I'm talking about, so it might not be feasible to simply ask people to take that on top of e.g. 3 arts and humanities A levels?
I feel there is a 4th group, which is those students for whom AS level maths over two years would be appropriate. I have a 17 year old daughter doing this, and it is a good option for more able students who can't fit maths into their A level selections but want to keep developing maths skills.
Yes, that's fair, I forgot those - I think they would come in the first category, which should have probably been "people doing A or AS" .. so wouldn't be the target market for this stuff.
Indeed. Compulsory maths to 18 might also encourage more schools to offer AS maths, which would be a good thing. Daughter's state comprehensive runs the class as an extra, which means going in at 8am twice a week - it's great that they offer it, but it would attract a lot more people during school hours!
Interesting proposals. I always wonder how some of this would work with the roughly one third (?) of the cohort who get less than a grade 4 at GCSE, as opposed to the majority who pass GCSE maths but then choose to take it no further. But then I'm an engineer not a teacher. Oh, and I've bought Numbercrunch but not yet read it...
Slightly off topic, I was amused by the AI generated header picture, showing the oft-noted tendency to get the number of fingers wrong on human hands. As an engineer, I consider myself to be pretty good at many aspects of maths, but I am truly terrible at mental arithmetic where counting fingers can be very effective.
Last time the government announced maths-to-18 (or was it two such announcements ago, or three?), Tim Gowers wrote a blogpost suggesting what he would like to cover in such a course. https://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/how-should-mathematics-be-taught-to-non-mathematicians/
Gowers's suggestions have a fair bit of overlap with Olly's (Fermi estimation, probability/statistics) but also some differences (Gowers is more "solve this problem" rather than "learn this technique"; Olly covers more "maths in art"). Gowers also has a long list of concrete proposed questions, which might interest readers of this.
Yes, of course these discussions do seem to come round every so often, and I'd certainly be happy if we ended up with some version of the Gowers proposals instead!
Excellent as usual. For many, I think if you can’t see the application and value of what you are being taught, learning any topic seems pointless or insurmountable. Two thoughts whilst reading this:
1) Einstein: “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.”
2) Assume you have read and enjoyed “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid” by Douglas Hofstadter?
Thanks. And yes, I definitely agree that you need to know some wider context and the point of what you are doing (I've certainly been put off topics in the past by not being able to see the big picture). I have read that book, but not for a long time - it's good isn't it!