The Primary School Maths HOAX

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

Something terrible happens usually between primary and secondary schooling.

The majority of primary school children say they ‘like’ maths, however by the time the first year of secondary schooling is complete the data reverses and the majority now ‘dislike’ maths.

Why is this?

These days the vast majority of primary schools have no rigour in their mathematics education.

Gone are the days when one had to stand for a times tables test in front of your classmates. Long gone are the playtimes when one had to stay in for falling below standards in the basic recall of the 3s or 4s and as for being required to silently complete pages and pages of arithmetic - that is so long ago that it might as well have been in the time of the dinosaurs.

These days, primary school maths is “fun” and “colourful” and “everyone can do it”.

Yes, it’s become, in other words: a COMMIE JOKE!

Young children are bounced around from topic to topic:

-fractions this week
-decimals next
-co-ordinates the following and
-fake algebra after that!

In fact, the children are being kept so busy and disoriented by the constantly shifting ground of new topics each week (and often in each individual lesson) that they are blissfully unaware of how poor their true mathematical skills really are… more to the pity, so are their parents(!)

Cue montage of secondary schooling!

Once these hopeless (and adorable) young things arrive at BIG SCHOOL, they hit the wall.

Mostly gone are the sunny worksheets and the physical recourses such as multilink cubes (they don’t work anyway, by the way!) to be replaced by a litany of dry maths tests, exams and long-winded or ‘wordy’ maths problems.

In other words, ‘shit just got real’.

It’s true that some secondary schools indulge the lower grades and continue the primary school maths hoax elongating the pretence that not being able to reliably add, subtract, multiply and divide aged 11-years ‘doesn’t really matter’ and ‘isn’t a measure of one’s intelligence’.

They coax these poor, unwitting children along - hoodwinking the parents as they go with official sounding terms such as ‘making expected progress’.

Teachers of mathematics know full well that we are expecting HALF of all children to fail, (it’s called THE BELL CURVE!!!!) so ‘making expected progress’ makes it easier than actually explaining to HALF of all parents that their children are failing in this KEY SUBJECT.

That’s right, HALF of all children are failing and that’s only compared with each other!

If you compare today’s 11-year-olds with those from the 1940’s and 1950’s the picture is FAR more bleak and yet on, on we go with the primary school maths hoax!

Evidence you say?

Oh, we’re drowning in it - even a cursory look at old GCSE and A Level exam papers shows the dramatic decline in mathematical standards right across the board.

Are you going to wait until you actually see bridges falling down?

Here’s a quick measurement you can take right now… do you remember how when YOU left primary school you could competently add, subtract, multiply and divide using only paper and a pen?

Do you REMEMBER that YOU were proficient in knowledge and rapid recall of the multiplication tables up to at least 12 x 12?

(Yes, multiplication tables do actually go beyond 12… [sighs, sadly])

So, answer me this…

How come your children cannot do these things?

Too busy mincing about on TikTARD or playing ‘educational computer games’ (LOL!)

How much longer are you going to play along with this charade?

It doesn’t have to be this way.

EARLY next month, I’m going to be delivering my signature course: Maths-Made-Easy… so that you can see precisely where primary (and the early years of secondary school) these days are going wrong and WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW.

So, stop bitching on FaceTube, quit groaning on INSTA-moan and actually get off your ass and do something to help!

I’ll be there, the Guerrilla Ed Clan will be there and we will help you to at least RESCUE your child’s mathematical education!

If your children are still going to an indoctrination centre, then let us please at least ensure they have the basic skills to protect their finances, solve real-world problems and to not ever be fooled by graphs issued by the government!

And as for those of you who are home educating and NOT, at the very least, members of my mathematics programme… words fail.

99.9% of mathematics resources are not fit for purpose - they are almost always incorrectly sequenced and as for those using A.I. to ‘randomly generate’ questions… the clue is in the title. You cannot learn mathematics ‘randomly’!

Think about it.

Happy children does NOT necessarily equal children who are even; ‘making expected progress’ in maths.

#JustSaying

Those of you who really do want your children to be the very best they can be, keep a watch for my Maths-Made-Easy course (for parents) coming THIS OCTOBER!

Education, not indoctrination. 

Sarah Plumley
Head Teacher, Guerrilla Ed
Expert Examiner GCSE Mathematics
BA, PGCE Secondary (Mathematics), QTS