February 18th, 2010
I’ve already twittered about this, but just a reminder that the much-discussed Channel 4 Dispatches programme The Kids Don’t Count has a minisite with a nice maths quiz.
Catch the twitterati talking about it with the #Dispatches hashtag, or try the test for yourself and see if you score 14/14.
As revealed in the Dispatches programme, only ONE of the 150 primary teachers who took a test like this got every question right. Which makes you wonder if they shouldn’t be taking a little primary maths tutoring before they take a class of future engineers, scientists and accountants.
Much fuss has been made of this, and the apparently parlous state our primary teaching is in. The GoW is inclined to be a little more generous, but only a little, because as he’s stated in the past, a love (if not innate aptitude) for the subject should come first, and an emphasis on testing second.
We’ll probably heap opprobium on the teachers, when we should be focussing on policy which chases test results, trains for pedagogy, and produces a blind willingness to cleave to a national curriculum which sometimes drains all the interest out of a subject.
Posted in Kids, Maths, News, News | No Comments »
February 15th, 2010
The Daily Telegraph takes a look at the apparently terrible maths skills of primary teachers.
A test administered by researchers for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme found that:
Only four out of 10 teachers could work out that 2.1 per cent of 400 is 8.4. Only a third knew that 1.4 divided by 0.1 is 14, and less than 50 per cent could work out that a half divided by a quarter is 2.
As The Telegraph points out, ‘The material covered in the Dispatches test is contained in the primary national curriculum…’. And this chimes, rather sadly, with our long-held assertion that most adults have a maths age of 10 or 11. This is late Key Stage 2 - primary - maths, never mind GCSE.
In itself that might be worrying, but that we only ask a C-grade maths GCSE of new Primary school teachers implies that pedagogy and method is more important than knowledge and the confidence that comes from skill.
The God of Maths is a firm believer in the idea that you don’t have to know everything to teach excellently. Just as a good manager should always hope that he promotes his subordinates’ skills above his, a teacher should hope that his charges eventually over-take him. He just has to light the fire.
Despite this, something you cannot fake or rationalise away is a basic confidence and competence in a subject, and if significant numbers of primary teachers really are failing questions like these below, we ought to worry:
- 1.4 รท 0.1
- 2.1% of 400
- ABCDE is a pentagon. Name all its diagonals
- 7/16 + 3/4
- The mean height of a group of 4 people is 2 metres. One more person joins the group and then the mean height is 1.9 metres. What is the height of the new person?
Tags: schools, teachers
Posted in News, News & Research | 1 Comment »
January 29th, 2010
Just a quick exhortation and encouragement to visit the city of Birmingham in 33 days, 18 hours, 20, 19, 18… minutes.
Whizz Education will be exhibiting at stand S8E (floorplan) from the 4th-6th March. The fair Natalies will be on hand to guide visitors through the delights of Maths-Whizz Tutoring and Teachers’ Resource tools, fresh from our awards shortlisting at BETT 2010.
To get a sense of what we’ll be up to, you can check out our Whizz Education exhibitor page or stroll down the ‘Education Show BETT Boulevard‘.
If you’re not sure what The ‘BETT Boulevard’ is (and I wasn’t), the AV Interactive blog helpfully explains:
A selection of exhibitors from the BETT show have been chosen to showcase their products at the Education Show 2010, which runs from 4-6 March at the NEC, Birmingham.
Due to growth in exhibitor demand, BETT Boulevard has been expanded and is now located in the For Your School area. Some of the exhibitors featured in BETT Boulevard include NumberGym Software Rentnote, Whizz Education, Rapid English Consultants and Spysure.
The Education Show 2010 is free to attend and is the UK’s largest exhibition of educational resources, regularly attracting over 15,000 visitors.
Tags: BETT, Education Show, maths-whizz
Posted in Coming Soon, Fun, Maths, News, News, Press & Feedback, Tutoring | No Comments »
January 28th, 2010
Quick plug to read up on ‘raising standard in maths with online tutoring‘ in this month’s edition of PIR Education magazine.
(Raising standards in maths - PIR Education)
Some great coverage of our efforts to boost maths standards in schools and home:
Maths-Whizz, which first appeared at BETT in 2006, returns this year with the latest generation of its animated maths teaching tools. The company’s method is to make services that work simply to raise standards in maths, regardless of the classroom environment, the student’s year group or the prevailing new vs. old maths agenda. For this, Maths-Whizz won a BETT award in 2006 and has since been adopted in domestic and schools markets as diverse as Mumbai, Seattle and Tunbridge Wells. The company has further boosted its credentials with two BETT award nominations this year.
Click through to PIR Education to get the full piece and share with all and sundry.
Tags: tutoring
Posted in Fun, Maths, News, News, Press & Feedback, Teachers' Resource, Tips & Support, Tutoring | No Comments »
