Why will it take 10 years and £187m to train "specialists" to teach basic mathematics to schoolchildren!?!
"The aim is to counter the prevailing culture in which, Sir Peter says, the UK remains one of the few advanced nations where it is socially acceptable - even fashionable - to profess an inability to cope with mathematics."
"I did maths at school and for one year at university but I don't think I was ever very good at it - and some people would say it shows." - Gordon Brown, 24th April 2007.
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2 comments:
Bloody hell - even 'Sir Peter' has conflated England into the UK...
I am 54 years old - when I was in primary school we had a mental arithmatic test every week on Wednesdays. On Fridays we had a spelling test and on Mondays we had handwriting tests.....
It was a simple, semi rural school - the only claim to fame it had was that Olympic Gold Medallist, Mary Peters attended the school before decamping to Ulster.
The thing is we had free milk, continuity and stability, we didn't have some champagne socialist minister who wouldn't know his x from his elbow, shoving his nosey beak into English school business at every politically convenient opportunity.
As a result of those weekly tests I have good handwriting skills, can do mental multiplication and can spell..... and the only costs involved was a few sheets of lined paper, inkpots and thirty inexpensive dipping pens......
(Mind you, I haven't a bloody clue what Katie & Peter or Dave & Posh are doing at the moment)...
Alfie, I totally agree! It should not take £187m to train teachers to ask simple maths questions like "what's 7 8s?"
I used to earn 40p for doing the spelling test and 50p if I got them all white!!
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