The New National Curriulum

Well, mathematical modelling now has a serious place in key stage 4. So, get yourselves ready. Do not look through the document looking for any coherence, though. You won’t find it. This is another pot-pouri. Some very odd things like frequent reference to mechanics as an example of mathematical modeling, even though it is not taught as that at A level. More a collection of known models being applied. The real trick is to get students to develop their own models critically and develop methods for validation. That’s why real engineering projects go through more than one development iteration and A level mechanics problems do not. My Pizza Project article develops the model creating phase here. Also, Venn diagrams are back for probability problems, but set theory is not. Vectors in different format are back, but matrices are not. My favourite is the explicit teaching of Roman numerals (up to 100 in year 4 and then, I kid you not, up to 1000 in year 5).

Mr Gove was on question time yesterday. We cannot learn to be creative until we have a through grounding in the facts and techniques needed, he says. Everyone agrees with this (including our good selves). The trouble is, that no-one questions which facts and techniques and for why. The secretary of state himself quotes long division as an example. But could he tell us which creative mathematics is opened up by being able to do long division. Certainly, at A level we can divide polynomials this way, and for sure, unpicking the process to see how it works, provides deep insights into the power of place value, but, as a technique to be learned, it is just a pandering to an imagined perfect past. The trouble for us, is that everyone … the man from industry, the children’s author and all of the politicians agree with him. I say get kids to memorise Pascal’s/The Chinese triangle and chant their squares, and cubes. That would genuinely help them engage with maths creatively. But 11×12? Why? Is old money making a comeback?

So, there’s a big opportunity. Some interesting if oddly chosen hard maths, that modelling word and even ‘proof’ is in there too. An absence of levels is a major blessing. But, ordinary kids have to be able to do this. Escalante got all of his students to AP calculus with ganas. We must be able to do this too. The stakes have been raised.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *