Daft Draft National Curriculum changes in maths

Well, I was going to let this pass by with no comment, but on reading it I  am becoming more and more certain that it has been written by idiots who last visited a primary school in 1961.

Firstly, it expects children to ‘use a compass to draw circles and arcs with a given radius’ in year 3. Hard enough with a pair of compasses but impossible with a compass which I use to find directions!

Secondly, children will have to learn tables up to 12, although we did away with 12 pence to a shilling many, many years ago. Whilst I have no problem with children knowing this I fail to understand why they need it.

Thirdly, ‘childen’ are no longer mentioned; they have become impersonal ‘pupils’ throughout.

Oh, and why has addition and subtraction of money suddenly become part of measurement and not part of addition and subtraction?

Rant over.

One thought on “Daft Draft National Curriculum changes in maths”

  1. More of a concern to me was the discussion in the preamble about adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions… I know many teachers in the primary sector who wouldn’t be able to do that let alone teach it. The further up you go, the more insane it becomes. Using a pair of compasses is not a high priority in Year 6 even right now as it has never been needed to be done in a Year 6 SAT test… I suspect that won’t be the case in future…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *