Times table to be learnt at Primary School
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just to make sure everyone understands, it is not the teaching of the times tables that is to be introduced (this already happens - a lot) it is the formal testing of them. And as Mr M says above it will not drive up standards.
Like most on here have said it is a myth than more 'mature' people are any better than children at arithemetic
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And it's also not all primary school children as stated in the OP but schools in England, whether other parts of the UK will follow suit or already do this is not mentioned.
Write your comments here...Indeed - It is only England where the problem lies apparently. According to the BBC news So Brue is quite correct..
The Scottish education system is, and always has been, superior to that of south of the border. So I would contend that the problem does not apply up here.
K
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spot on there K, as always your finger is on the pulse of scottish educational issues
The Scottish Parliament's cross-party education committee will hear the views of teachers, parents and others as part of its year-long investigation.
It came amid concerns that too many children from poorer families leave school early without qualifications.
in Scotland that is
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I recall recently reading an article which compared standards in the 50s and now. Interestingly this suggested that there has been little if any improvement in standards across the discipines taught mathematics and arithmetic. Also, In the 50s a very high percerage of pupils where regularly absent for school, some never attended and lots of children who were of primary school age did not appear in the statistics, as they do today, for a whole raft of reasons. Comparisons are not as simple as these sound bites suggest but I guess you would need to understand those mathematical aspects of statistics to grasp this.
The research can be acquired here
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oh and...
The leaders of seven councils have called for a national taskforce to be set up to help deal with teacher recruitment problems.
They made the call at a summit on tackling teacher shortages in northern and rural parts of Scotland.
In some areas, scores of posts are unfilled and adverts have been failing to attract suitable candidates.
and
"Many councils in the north and north east of Scotland are experiencing higher than normal levels of teacher shortages - particularly at senior management levels.
and
The shortages are at their worst in Aberdeen city, where a fifth of its primary schools have no permanent head and 50 teacher posts are unfilled. That was despite repeated efforts to boost recruitment with “golden hellos” for new teachers worth
£5,000, recruitment drives in Ireland and Canada, and low-cost flats in the city reserved for teachers
you are recruiting overseas? really?0 -
And it's also not all primary school children as stated in the OP but schools in England, whether other parts of the UK will follow suit or already do this is not mentioned.
Write your comments here...Indeed - It is only England where the problem lies apparently. According to the BBC news So Brue is quite correct..
The Scottish education system is, and always has been, superior to that of south of the border. So I would contend that the problem does not apply up here.
K
It is very sad to see you drop down to racist posting Kennine. The Scotland great but England is not mantra is not acceptable. I have never seen anything on CT that has not given praise to the Scots & Scotland that warmth & friendship is then repaid by your
derogatory post. Very sad.0 -
More on this tables lark (and back to the OP) but just knowing your tables does not make you numerate. I often get the 'I know my tables.. kids nowadays don’t....' bit, usually in a pub when people find out I teach maths.
I play along and ask them some hard tables question which they do get right, I then ask about the petrol station I’ve just passed with petrol at 99p and diesel at £1 and 4p a litre. Two cars go in and both put in 20 litres, how much did the petrol car save
compared with the diesel?The answer to this gives you a very good idea of how numerate they are:
I didn’t learn my 99 times table – totally innumerate and a moronic answer
I don’t know my 20 twenty times table -better but knowing their two and ten times tables didn’t really help join the dots up between them did it? So much for knowing their tables.
How they then tackle the problem shows how good they really are.
Some do 99 times 2 then times by 10, the same for £1.04
Some say that 99p is 1p off a £1 so it’s 20 times 1 and 20 times 4 – much better
Some find the difference between 99p and £1.04, which is 5p and times that by 20 – even better.
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I think numeracy is a VERY important skill, no one admits to being unable to read but some are almost boastful about NOT doing maths. I work with lots - when they are trying to work out their holiday, all allocated in hours, or flexi sheets, still done
manually, it's a joke. Especially if they need to use a calculator to 'do' them sums as they aren't sure about 0.5 being 30 minutes
. One of the reasons for knowing times tables means that you can have a rough idea of whether the calculator is giving you a reasonable
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If I compared the type of early maths education I had..eg how many bucketfuls of coal would fill a bath at a rate of whatever ....to the computer programming and advanced maths that is being learnt now, I think we should be pleased with our teachers and their students.
(I never quite "got" the relevance of the bath bit and I think I might have enjoyed the computer bit!)0 -
If I compared the type of early maths education I had..eg how many bucketfuls of coal would fill a bath at a rate of whatever ....to the computer programming and advanced maths that is being learnt now, I think we should be pleased with our teachers and
their students. (I never quite "got" the relevance of the bath bit and I think I might have enjoyed the computer bit!)I agree Brue. I would love to be a child today learning computer programming. I've dived into it later in life and it's much more interesting that Pythagoras's Theorem or Sines, Cosines and Logarithms ever were!!
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If I compared the type of early maths education I had..eg how many bucketfuls of coal would fill a bath at a rate of whatever ....to the computer programming and advanced maths that is being learnt now, I think we should be pleased with our teachers and
their students. (I never quite "got" the relevance of the bath bit and I think I might have enjoyed the computer bit!)I agree Brue. I would love to be a child today learning computer programming. I've dived into it later in life and
it's much more interesting that Pythagoras's Theorem or Sines, Cosines and Logarithms ever were!!In your opinion. However I would rather be doing Pythagoras and algebra than computing. We are not all the same.
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If I compared the type of early maths education I had..eg how many bucketfuls of coal would fill a bath at a rate of whatever ....to the computer programming and advanced maths that is being learnt now, I think we should be pleased with our teachers and their students.
(I never quite "got" the relevance of the bath bit and I think I might have enjoyed the computer bit!)I agree Brue. I would love to be a child today learning computer programming. I've dived into it later in life and it's much more interesting that Pythagoras's Theorem or Sines, Cosines and Logarithms ever were!!
In your opinion. However I would rather be doing Pythagoras and algebra than computing. We are not all the same.
Yep! Just my opinion and my preferences!
And I still know my times tables!!!
Cheers
Bugs
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Am but a simple sailer now desk bound, what would I know. Education ah yes, the one item consecutive Governments tinker with for the sake of it. Teachers and pupils suffer. I have one of 7 and one of 10yrs, both ready to pop before the Xmas hols. In fact whilst they did well bless them, I still complained about the pressure they are under. Consider this one moment, application, do you realise that if they had in fact not attempted to pump water out of the bow of the Titanic, but use the same pumps to flood the stern compartments she would not of floundered. Flooding the stern section, would have effectively brought the bow up. Therefore reducing the flooding in the forward section.
My point, there were many many well educated people on board at the time, a well educated Master, the Owners rep and the designer all of who I guess had a jolly good education, but no application.
Teaching children to pass a test, will in no way help anyone, only people who have worked outside education will accept that.
Its a daily battle, which it should not be!
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Wow - Everybody knows that the Northumbrians are the Creme de la Creme among those south of the border, But to cover those mathematical subjects in primary education, which is what this thread is all about, is really impressive.
Quote :- " I would love to be a child today learning computer programming. I've dived into it later in life and it's much more interesting that Pythagoras's Theorem or Sines, Cosines and Logarithms ever were!!"
K
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However I would rather be doing Pythagoras and algebra than computing. We are not all the same.
‘Proper’ computing is not using computer products, it’s writing the code to create them and is very similar to Algebra.
If code writers stuck to the same logic, rather than trying to reinvent something new, we might get on better using their products and could use a program rather than rely on tables.
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...., do you realise that if they had in fact not attempted to pump water out of the bow of the Titanic, but use the same pumps to flood the stern compartments she would not of floundered. Flooding the stern section, would have effectively brought the bow
up. Therefore reducing the flooding in the forward section. ...Isn't hindsight wonderful?
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...., do you realise that if they had in fact not attempted to pump water out of the bow of the Titanic, but use the same pumps to flood the stern compartments she would not of floundered. Flooding the stern section, would have effectively brought the bow
up. Therefore reducing the flooding in the forward section. ...Isn't hindsight wonderful?
It is easy to argue that you should teach to think 'outside the box' and that we should be preparing our children think for themselves and to problem solve - and perhaps someone on the Titanic may have thought "What if...?" There is obviously an argument
for learning mathematical skills but learning tables is no solution.0 -
But this is what our society is becoming. Ticking boxes. Learning what rather than why. Doing as we’re told rather than understand the reason.
We seemed to be a country of ‘mangers’ who are not actually trusted to manage. Instead, they must follow procedures rigidly and “evidence” everything they do.
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But this is what our society is becoming. Ticking boxes. Learning what rather than why. Doing as we’re told rather than understand the reason.
We seemed to be a country of ‘managers’ who are not actually trusted to manage. Instead, they must follow procedures rigidly and “evidence” everything they do.
You are absolutely correct in that, rogher, and it was probably the single greatest area of frustration throughout the latter part of my career!
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Teaching children within the present teaching confines is counter productive. In order for them to excel, they must be given the opportunity to explore every possible solution to a challenging situation..
They need to be taught that thinking out of the box is a good thing..
Why should they be taught base 10 only ( Decimal ) they should be taught base 2 base 8 base 16 and even base 12.
bases 2, 8 and 16 are necessary to understand the concept of computing.
It is by giving the child the ability to look outside the box that enables them to be the leaders of industry the future.
Teaching methods need updating !!!
K
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"Teaching children within the present teaching confines is counter productive. In order for them to excel, they must be given the opportunity to explore every possible solution to a challenging situation.. "
Well said K, you're coming round to a teacher's way of thinking about education, rather than a poitician's after all ! It's taken time but - progress indeed!
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My nine year old grandaughter was proud to tell me at Christmas that she knew her 12 x table and was happy for me to test her, she was very proud that she got them right. However when i asked her about others such as the 5 x table she didn't know any of
them, I would have though if they are going to learn tables then they need to learn them all. Why should 12 x be more important than any other.0 -
The announcement and this thread have concentrated on the 12x table, but I would say that all of the tables up to 12 should be taught with equal emphasis. Yes Yes, - I know that there are calculators available today but I dont want to be consulting them every time I go shopping. But I often do find it advantagious to be able to work out what a particular number of items at ..... willl cost me. My knowledge of all the times tables is still today one of the most well used lessons I learnt at school.
I fully accept that modern life also requires knowledge of many other subjects too, but those tables were far too useful just to dump because we now have calculators!
TF
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Learning whole tables 'parrot fashion' to 12x is pointless if all you are doing is making sounds without understanding number patterns. That's 144 lines of 'poetry' memorised if you ever succeed in this. Also, what's the point of learning 8x6 if you already know 6x8? Understanding the role and relationship between multiplier, multiplicand and product is far more useful, less of a chore and easier. You then have the division tables as a bonus!
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"Teaching children within the present teaching confines is counter productive. In order for them to excel, they must be given the opportunity to explore every possible solution to a challenging situation.. "
Well said K, you're coming round to a teacher's way of thinking about education, rather than a poitician's after all ! It's taken time but - progress indeed!Write your comments here...Tut Tut M - You are incorrect in saying I have changed my mind on quality education for our up and coming generation.
My views have always remained constant,
Hence my disappointment when I read of schools and school staff failing to educate children to the very best of the young person's abilities.
Our children deserve the best education that devoted teachers can provide, particularly in mathematics ---------- they get it in some schools, but not all.
K
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"Teaching children within the present teaching confines is counter productive. In order for them to excel, they must be given the opportunity to explore every possible solution to a challenging situation.. "
Well said K, you're coming round to a teacher's way of thinking about education, rather than a poitician's after all ! It's taken time but - progress indeed!Write your comments here...Tut Tut M - You are incorrect in saying I have changed my mind on quality education for our up and coming generation.
My views have always remained constant,
Hence my disappointment when I read of schools and school staff failing to educate children to the very best of the young person's abilities.
Our children deserve the best education that devoted teachers can provide, particularly in mathematics ---------- they get it in some schools, but not all.
K
But that isn't what I said, is it K? Like all right minded folk, you want the best for youngsters, wherever they live and whatever their circumstances - no disagreement there.
I am genuinely pleased though to see that you appear now to be thinking from a teacher's viewpoint, rather than a politician's or administrator's. Well done!
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