got my maths GCSE sometime in my mid-20s, some time after graduating from university and subsequently qualifying as a journalist. At no point had I needed the qualification: it simply felt like unfinished business. Amazingly, I got a B. And I can't remember how to do any of it now.
As a result of all these, I feel pretty strongly about maths teaching. My own problems may have stemmed from being incredibly short-sighted -- a fact which was missed until we moved towns when I was 7 and I found myself at the back of a Victorian classroom, unable to see the blackboard let alone anything written on it. My teacher called in my parents after a few weeks and told them unceremoniously: "She's either short-sighted or thick."
But the horrible pink-framed NHS specs only solved the eyesight problem. I remained thick at maths thereafter, with no attempt made by anyone to take me back through the basics I'd missed before acquiring the gift of sight. In my grammar school, bottom-set maths was taught by the headmistress herself, a woman with a penchant for leather-trimmed suits and little gift for suffering fools gladly. However, I was good at other stuff and thrived academically by concentrating on the subjects I could do.
So this week's Ofsted report on maths struck a real chord. For many, attainment at 16 can be predicted at 11, and this tracks back to what they'd mastered at 7 -- and all this often dates back to their pre-school experience of maths. "Low attainment too often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Pupils known to be eligible for free school meals fare particularly badly."
In many schools, there is a wide variation in how good lessons and teaching are, and "too many able pupils" are underachieving. Moreover, according to Ofsted, exam attainment has risen, but successive changes in the specifications have reduced the demand of the paper on many pupils.
And pupils closest to external examinations get the best teaching. "Learning and progress were good or outstanding in nearly two thirds of lessons in Key Stage 4 higher sets, double the proportion observed in lower sets where around one in seven lessons was inadequate. Teaching was strongest in the Early Years Foundation Stage and upper Key Stage 2 and markedly weakest in Key Stage 3. Teaching in the sixth form was slightly stronger than at GCSE. Year 1 was the weak spot in primary teaching."
According to the inspectors, pupils' understanding was not monitored well enough to ensure that they learned and progressed to the best of their ability, and very few schools provided curricular guidance for staff, underpinned by professional development focusing on subject knowledge and expertise.
"Schools were more aware than at the time of the previous survey of the need to improve pupils’ problem-solving and investigative skills, but such activities were rarely integral to learning except in the best schools where they were at the heart of learning mathematics. Many teachers continued to struggle to develop skills of using and applying mathematics systematically."
The recommendations are interesting: the DfE should apparently raise ambition for more able pupils, promote enhancement of subject knowledge through teacher training, research the success rates into post 16 maths in schools and ensure all external exams require pupils to solve " familiar and unfamiliar problems and demonstrate fluency and accuracy in recalling and using essential knowledge and mathematical methods".
Sir Michael Wilshaw says Ofsted itself will provide support materials to help schools "identify and remedy" weaknesses in mathematics. Inspections will then put greater emphasis on how effectively a school tackles inconsistent quality in maths teaching, how well teaching fosters understanding, pupils' problem-solving skills. And finally, inspectors will challenge "extensive use of early and repeated entry" to GCSE examinations.
Leaving aside the reasons why schools have been entering pupils early, this approach deserves at least two cheers. From bits and pieces I've gleaned from school visits and talking to parents, maths is still often the weakest link in schools -- often for all sorts of cultural reasons, which mean that many Britons are still quite unashamed of admitting that they don't get maths. Parents will tell you that their kids are finding it difficult to learn in lower maths sets because behaviour control is worse (and the kids who don't care in most subjects really don't care in maths, where it is socially acceptable to admit you don't understand what's going on).
It's also one of those subjects where it's possible to paper over the gaps to some extent: that if children are drilled to do certain things in certain circumstances then they may get to a certain level before the problems show up. And by that time, it's time-consuming to find out which bits of the foundation aren't there.
A friend who teachers primary maths despairs about the speed at which she has to whisk her children through the curriculum, without having the time to ensure that everyone is secure in their latest bit of learning before moving on. "There's just too much on the syllabus at KS2," she says.
But with the right CPD, all sorts of things are possible. One of the best bits of maths teaching I've ever seen in a school was in a year 2 class. The teacher told me she had never felt quite confident about maths, but was currently enrolled on a Masters course in teaching the subject and was trying out her new techniques on the class. They were bright, engaged, and really enjoying what they were doing.
I brought some of the worksheets home and waved them at my children, who ranged from primary age to year 10, and they captured the interest of all three. How?
Well, here's the sheet on time problems. It's in four sections, and in each one the pupils has to prove whether a statement is true or false. So:
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Ten minutes later will always be a multiple of ten
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The 11th day of every month this year will be a palindrome
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Being able to count in 5s helps you to tell the time
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It will take you half an hour to get ready for school if it takes you 10 minutes to get dressed, 15 minutes to eat breakfast, and 2 minutes to brush your teeth.
The key, said the teacher, was that the questions were open-ended and got the children thinking about the problem and possible techniques, taking them away from the idea of right or wrong. It also helped that as someone who'd struggled with maths herself, she could understand that it didn't always come easily to children.
Government ministers, I've been told, are fixated on the idea of children being taught to do long division, and it'll be fascinating to see how that one pans out when the new maths curriculum (finally) arrives.
Yes, long division and all those other techniques are vitally important. But getting the underpinnings is important too, and that means not frightening children off from the fun and interest of maths, and teaching it in a fresh and interesting way, watching out for those holes in understanding. Moreover, parents who are in the pilot for parenting vouchers should be offered advice on how to help their children enjoy maths from the off.
If Ofsted plans to take a helpful approach on this, with its promised materials on helping schools "identify and remedy" inconsistencies in maths teaching, that would be great -- but until the new curriculum is out, schools are facing an unknown challenge.
It would be good to think that Ofsted and the government will work together with schools to ensure that when the new curriculum does arrive, everyone is working together to help children get the best possible outcomes. But I'm not holding my breath.
