Maths in primary schools

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yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Post by yoyo123 »

remember that primary teachers undergo training in the numeracy strategy, before and after qualifying.

More recently they also have to pass a numeracy test before they can gain qualified teacher status.

GCSE c maths is the minimum needed to begin teacher training, remember some of us have studied maths to a much higher level than that and have also spent a lot of time learning how to get our knowledge across to others ( a much under-rated skill).

My original post referred not to the competence, but the confidence to tackle the subject.
Catherine
Posts: 1348
Joined: Sun Dec 04, 2005 4:47 pm
Location: Berks,Bucks

Post by Catherine »

Guest55 wrote:Catherine and others - the 'old methods' failed most people as they did them by rote and had no strategy for knowing whether the answer was correct!
The old methods may not be perfect, but my problem with the new methods is that they also lead to mistakes, and they take longer.

I don't think either that learning maths methods by rote is a good idea, and I agree 100% with you, guest55, that maths is about understanding and solving problems. But in my opinion, it's not really what the KS2 is about. It is way too superficial.
SunlampVexesEel
Posts: 1245
Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:31 pm

Post by SunlampVexesEel »

Having done my fair share of math in the past I have been totally bewildered by the techniques being brought home from primary school. I believe they (e.g. partitioning) are totally confusing and actually do not help.
also lead to mistakes, and they take longer.
Spot on!

Fortunately I am confident so could happily teach long addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It was a joy to see the result... the light dawned and confidence followed...

Algebra next...

8)

Regards
SVE
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