Training | 2010.02.14
Primary school teachers fail to pass basic maths exam
Test reveals the majority of primary school staff cannot answer simple arithmetic questions
Do you know how to calculate a percentage, or the meaning of product, multiple and factor, or how to convert celsius into fahrenheit?
Those are the sort of basic maths operations that an 11-year-old should be able to cope with. But many teachers might struggle.
A test comprising "27 straightforward maths questions" carried out by 155 primary school teachers has revealed a "shocking lack of mental arithmetic ability and basic maths knowledge".
Fewer than four out of 10 of those who sat the test – designed for 11-year-olds – could calculate 2.1% of 400, and only a third answered correctly that 1.4 divided by 0.1 was 14. Overall, four out of ten scored 40% or below, only one got all the answers correct and the average mark was 12 out of 27 or 45%.
Alison Wolf, professor of public sector management at King\'s College London, said: "I am horrified by the statistics. I think that our obsession with generic teaching skills has crowded out time in which we could be making sure that people have the basic content and knowledge of content that they need."
The test, carried out for the Channel 4 documentary series Dispatches , included addition and multiplication sums, simple algebra and questions involving fractions, conversions and averages. Teachers performed well on some of the easier questions. For example, 97% were able to work out 2 x 5 - 4 = 6 and 75% knew that three sevenths of 21 was 9. But only six teachers (4%) knew that the answer to 2 divided by 0 was infinity.
The test was set by Richard Dunne, a former teacher and the author of Maths Makes Sense.
Dunne said teachers were "thoroughly dedicated", but argued the test showed that more than half of them understood "so little maths that they cannot be conveying mathematics to their children in the classroom".
One primary school teacher from north London said it was unfair to say teachers were not able to deliver maths lessons successfully. "You would always prepare for a lesson, so you would be able to teach it properly," said the 29-year-old. "A primary school teacher could be teaching nursery, which is ages three and four, and never teach that level of maths. I haven\'t taught anyone over the age of seven for four years now.
"It is just like if you haven\'t done French for four years – you forget your vocab, but if you revised it that would bring you up to speed." She said teachers for younger children needed a "multitude of skills" such as creativity, communication and being kind, and argued those things were far more important than being able to memorise maths rules that were not relevant to their teaching.
In the documentary Justin King, the CEO of Sainsbury\'s, said his company had had to introduce a basic maths skills programme for employees. He argued that some of the employees were being held back by their lack of ability in the subject – and said his job involved maths every day.
"We employ 150,000 people, and I think I could make a pretty strong case for why maths is important for every single one of them," added King.
"If you think about our buyers, they have to understand a cost price and a selling price in a margin that they would have to express as a percentage. If you think of our store managers, they are managing budgets, they have to allocate wages and working hours, all the way through to colleagues, say, working on a till." King said the record on basic maths in schools was not good enough and ought to be challenged. Speaking about the fact that last year one in five children left primary school without reaching the expected level in maths, he added: "Any system that succeeds only 80% of the time in achieving its basic result needs changing."
King said that, when he went to school, he was taught the three Rs, and did maths O-level without a calculator. Learning multiplication tables by rote gave a "core grounding", he added. "I think we have lost some of those core skills."
Vernon Coaker, the schools minister, said the government planned to train 13,000 maths specialists over the next decade for primary schools. "The fact is that 100,000 more 11-year-olds are reaching level 4 in maths compared with 1997, because of record investment, great teaching and a strong focus on the basics for all pupils," he said.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010[...]mary-teachers-fail-maths-tests
