Maths maths and more maths
I just saw on the BBC that "Secondary schools in England are to pilot a twinned maths GCSE - in which maths could be taken as a double subject, worth two GCSEs." I'm very happy to hear this, though it's a shame it apparently wont be an option for most schools until at least 2015, but at least it's a step in the right direction. I sincerely hope it will encourage the teaching of children to understand basic statistics and to analyze the truth behind the figures which are dished out as "proof" of one argument or another every day either by or to the media. Sadly, something which the reporters of the aforementioned BBC article probably are incapable of. I was a bit surprised to read that...
This week a major global analysis of maths and science standards - the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study - found that 10 and 14-year-olds in England were among the best in the world.
The study found that both primary and secondary pupils were ranked seventh in tests - ahead of pupils in other industrialised countries including United States, Germany and Australia.
OK... that sounds impressive, and I was a bit surprised because to be brutally honest I don't have a particularly high opinion of maths teaching in UK schools. Sure, I'd expect it to be higher than the countries mentioned, but 7th seemed very good. I was even more impressed when I saw the top 5 (for grade 8) was Chinese Taipei, S.Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan (none of these are surprising) which meant that Hungary in 6th place was the only European nation with a higher score than England, which really shocked me. So I looked further, and realised that the countries I would expect to see beating the UK (I'll come back to this) weren't on the list at all. In my personal experience, the best European mathematicians I've met have tended to come from France, which didn't take part in the study. Nor did Switzerland. Or Ireland, Spain, Portugul, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Greece, and so on. So to be fair, that "in the World" is rather undeserved. We came 7th in a list of just 48 nations which included Ghana and Botswana, and I'm sorry but that's just not as impressive as the statement implied. It's great that we're ahead of the US and Russia, but unless we're being compared to the likes of France, Switzerland and Canada the only thing we can say is that we're behind the Far Eastern states because being ahead of Bahrain isn't really worth mentioning. And at the same time, Scotland was down in 17th place just 1 point ahead of Serbia, and notably behind both the US and Australia, while Germany ISN'T IN THE LIST EITHER making the posturing of the article downright foolish, and quite possibly just plain wrong.
Edit:
I just spotted a second BBC article specifically about this report here. Once again, it states "The results put England's pupils ahead of other European countries, including industrial competitors such as Germany and the traditional education powerhouses of Scandinavia." and of course a classic quote
Mary Bousted of the ATL said that it showed "the doom-mongers who undersell English schools have been proved wrong".
Well, here's the full list of countries from the report itself (with Grade 8 scores). I challenge you to find Germany in the list. Or many of our other "industrial competitors" for that matter.
Chinese Taipei 598
Korea, Rep. of 597
Singapore 593
Hong Kong SAR 572
Japan 570
Hungary 517
England 513
Russian Federation 512
United States 508
Lithuania 506
Czech Republic 504
Slovenia 501
Armenia 499
Australia 496
Sweden 491
Malta 488
Scotland 487
Serbia 486
Italy 480
Malaysia 474
Norway 469
Cyprus 465
Bulgaria 464
Israel 463
Ukraine 462
Romania 461
Bosnia and Herzegovina 456
Lebanon 449
Thailand 441
Turkey 432
Jordan 427
Tunisia 420
Georgia 410
Iran, Islamic Rep. of 403
Bahrain 398
Indonesia 397
Syrian Arab Republic 395
Egypt 391
Algeria 387
Colombia 380
Oman 372
Palestinian Nat'l Auth. 367
Botswana 364
Kuwait 354
El Salvador 340
Saudi Arabia 329
Ghana 309
Qatar 307
This week a major global analysis of maths and science standards - the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study - found that 10 and 14-year-olds in England were among the best in the world.
The study found that both primary and secondary pupils were ranked seventh in tests - ahead of pupils in other industrialised countries including United States, Germany and Australia.
OK... that sounds impressive, and I was a bit surprised because to be brutally honest I don't have a particularly high opinion of maths teaching in UK schools. Sure, I'd expect it to be higher than the countries mentioned, but 7th seemed very good. I was even more impressed when I saw the top 5 (for grade 8) was Chinese Taipei, S.Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan (none of these are surprising) which meant that Hungary in 6th place was the only European nation with a higher score than England, which really shocked me. So I looked further, and realised that the countries I would expect to see beating the UK (I'll come back to this) weren't on the list at all. In my personal experience, the best European mathematicians I've met have tended to come from France, which didn't take part in the study. Nor did Switzerland. Or Ireland, Spain, Portugul, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Greece, and so on. So to be fair, that "in the World" is rather undeserved. We came 7th in a list of just 48 nations which included Ghana and Botswana, and I'm sorry but that's just not as impressive as the statement implied. It's great that we're ahead of the US and Russia, but unless we're being compared to the likes of France, Switzerland and Canada the only thing we can say is that we're behind the Far Eastern states because being ahead of Bahrain isn't really worth mentioning. And at the same time, Scotland was down in 17th place just 1 point ahead of Serbia, and notably behind both the US and Australia, while Germany ISN'T IN THE LIST EITHER making the posturing of the article downright foolish, and quite possibly just plain wrong.
Edit:
I just spotted a second BBC article specifically about this report here. Once again, it states "The results put England's pupils ahead of other European countries, including industrial competitors such as Germany and the traditional education powerhouses of Scandinavia." and of course a classic quote
Mary Bousted of the ATL said that it showed "the doom-mongers who undersell English schools have been proved wrong".
Well, here's the full list of countries from the report itself (with Grade 8 scores). I challenge you to find Germany in the list. Or many of our other "industrial competitors" for that matter.
Chinese Taipei 598
Korea, Rep. of 597
Singapore 593
Hong Kong SAR 572
Japan 570
Hungary 517
England 513
Russian Federation 512
United States 508
Lithuania 506
Czech Republic 504
Slovenia 501
Armenia 499
Australia 496
Sweden 491
Malta 488
Scotland 487
Serbia 486
Italy 480
Malaysia 474
Norway 469
Cyprus 465
Bulgaria 464
Israel 463
Ukraine 462
Romania 461
Bosnia and Herzegovina 456
Lebanon 449
Thailand 441
Turkey 432
Jordan 427
Tunisia 420
Georgia 410
Iran, Islamic Rep. of 403
Bahrain 398
Indonesia 397
Syrian Arab Republic 395
Egypt 391
Algeria 387
Colombia 380
Oman 372
Palestinian Nat'l Auth. 367
Botswana 364
Kuwait 354
El Salvador 340
Saudi Arabia 329
Ghana 309
Qatar 307