I often hear people say that they are “terrible at maths”, but very rarely do I hear them say that they are not great at reading or writing. As teachers I believe that we have a responsibility to make maths relevant to kids, so that it sits alongside reading and writing as a basic skill. Statistically, 26% of children leave primary school after failing to reach the grade expected of them in maths. Why is this significant?
Well, Kip McGrath is holding a national competition to find out what students want to be when they grow up. The results so far show that very little has changed since I was in school; the majority of kids are still unsure about what they want to do with their lives....
Kids today have more freedom to decide what they want to be, without the same constraints of society and family expectations. At the same time, the job market is changing rapidly, with careers in IT and social media that didn’t even exist five years ago, and this trend will continue. So how do we help them embrace their new-found freedom and still ensure that they have the right educational foundations? Bear with me; I’m working towards my theme in a meandering kind of way!
If teenagers are not sure what they want to do, should they study algebra just in case? Should they learn all the maths they can so that when they finally decide what they want to be, they won’t be held back by a lack of algebra or geometry?!
Even if students think they know what they want to be, how many times will they change their minds? On average, the kids in school now can expect to change careers up to five times during their working lives. I am an older generation, and I am in my fourth career change! How do we prepare kids for that possibility?
Previous generations often worked in the same career, for the same employer, their entire lives. My father is a case in point, man and boy he worked for the same bank, retiring as a bank manager when that role still meant something. In fact my husband was working for the same bank when we met. I think my father warmed to him partly for that fact, and was very disappointed when he decided on a career change and left the bank.

This week I have been teaching the Pythagoran Theorum, and the kids have asked “why do we need this, why do I need to know how to calculate the square root of a number, are square roots really important?” I, as I hope their school teachers do, try to engage in their curiosity! Let them think about it for a few minutes.  Then ask, in what occupations or situations would you need to find the longest side of a triangle?  The answer is, in any kind of job that deals with triangles. For example, carpenters, engineers, architects, construction workers, those who measure and mark land, artists, and designers. Oh and one my student’s dads, a tiler!

The point is that kids have no way of knowing with any certainty whether or not maths will have an impact on one or more of their future careers, so it really is our responsibility to make certain they have the best preparation possible.
Studying maths is like building a brick wall: you need the bricks on the lower part to build on, and if you leave holes in your building, you can't build on the holes. As a tutor, my main role is to help build the blocks, or at least fill in the holes!