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A level choices

A new report has shown that fewer students are choosing to combine arts with sciences at A level, and this is seen to be a direct result of the previous Conservative government’s education policies at the time when Michael Gove was Education Secretary:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/aug/14/a-level-students-choosing-narrower-range-of-subjects-after-gove-changes

When I did A levels, many years ago, I chose Maths, Physics and English on the basis that I really enjoyed Maths and English and couldn’t decide between a sciences or an arts route. Physics was just because it kind of went with maths, and I was interested in the big ideas behind it (still am) though it probably wasn’t well thought through. 

I’m so glad even now that I combined arts with sciences, even though I chose a sciences career path – I feel that it has strengthened my broad range of skills, and really aided my careers in both teaching and publishing where communication and analytical skills are both vital. 

I hope the new government will ensure that a more balanced curriculum all the way through school is available to all, and reverse some of the previous administration’s policies  around limited baccalaureates that favour STEM over the arts. 

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Capacity

Looking ahead into 2024, I am likely to have some capacity for new projects in the second half of the year, from June/ July onwards. My specialism is maths education across the K-12 spectrum and across a wide range of global curricula. I can offer:

  • authoring
  • reviewing
  • consultancy
  • market research
  • professional development
  • development editing
  • project management
  • talent sourcing

I can best be contacted at karlwarsi@outlook.com

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

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Covid and Maths

The Covid pandemic at its peak was both shocking and devastating. In the UK, the response is being reviewed by a comprehensive enquiry, which is examining evidence relating to the preparedness of the UK government and its actions.

This enquiry is much needed, particularly since the vaccine programme is generally seen as having been a success – touted by the government and backed up by the billionaire press as being world-beating, with a responsiveness  supposedly only made possible by the UK’s departure from the EU. 

However the reality of the UK’s overall responsiveness to the Covid pandemic, particularly in its initial stages and then throughout 2020, is being found to have been far from adequate, and potentially resulted in the avoidable loss of tens of thousands of lives. 

One significant area of interest in the enquiry is the government’s lack of knowledge, or indeed interest, in the maths behind the pandemic, which appears to have caused some exasperation among the leading scientists that were feeding into policy at the time. Educated largely in Classics and PPE (and interested in the economic potential of exploiting the other kind of PPE!), the cabinet  seemed unaware of the working of exponentials, which was the key concept behind the elusive ‘R number’.  It could be argued that  a tendency to think linearly led to inappropriate measures being taken. Furthermore, a misunderstanding of basic percentages led to perception of risk being out by a factor of 100, potentially resulting in disastrously inadequate measures being taken. Perhaps the much-used phrase ‘schoolboy error’ should be revisited. Perhaps also maths education should involve more on probability and risk (but getting away from coins, spinners and dice), alongside the current welcome focus on proportion and rates of change. 

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Teaching real world maths

As the UK gears up for a general election, there’s a lot of talk from politicians about how maths should be taught. The latest is from the Labour Party, stating that real world maths should be taught at primary school. While the idea of six year olds being able to interpret a pay slip, or exchange currency from Argentinian Peso to Czech Koruna, might seem appealing to some, and possibly make more sense to those six year olds than the maths they’re given currently, I do have some concerns.

For one thing, the real-life maths of today might have little meaning by the time these pupils are able to make independent choices and decisions. And for another, the notion that real-life contexts makes maths easier to understand and more engaging is slightly spurious. Pupils have an innate understanding of number, and patterns, as abstract ideas, and I think that time devoted to these concepts, as well as arithmetical and geometrical  relationships, along with additive and proportional reasoning and so on, is time well spent.

And, much like all ‘new’ initiatives, it’s been done before, with the touting of ‘functional maths’ which was supposed to be a major new qualification about fifteen or twenty years ago, and then wasn’t really that major after all. A good curriculum always contains some real-world maths.  I would argue that we don’t necessarily need lots more.    

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Scrapping of A-levels in England

Regarding the new government announcement about scrapping A-levels in favour of a baccalaureate-style qualification, the idea of broadening educational experience in the 16-18 age group seems potentially beneficial at first glance; however I would first explore whether this could be achieved within the existing A-level framework, or something similar.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that the government said that ‘A levels were broken’ and needed to be overhauled with new improved A levels; it was certainly within the lifetime of the current political leadership, accompanied by a whirlwind of educational changes at all levels. And it was within the last two decades that a similar idea to the current plan was touted, and taken to an advanced stage, with the Tomlinson report of 2004 and its key idea of replacing A-levels with a diploma. This idea was scrapped before it could achieve fruition, hinting at a rather disjointed long-term strategy for education.

As regards maths to 18, it’s good to promote maths and challenge the preconceptions that drag the economy down, as well as dragging life chances down; however I am concerned that the idea of more maths for another two years is simplistic and inappropriate. The focus should be on improving the quality of maths education further down, rather than building a new extension on to shaky foundations. If a broader diploma-style education is to be considered, simply extending the often negative experiences of many students regarding maths for two more years should be avoided at all costs. Appropriateness to pathways of study is key, so perhaps we could work towards a broader acceptance of what could be regarded as a valuable ‘mathsy-sciency’ module and how it could be tailored to different routes.

This will not be an easy thing to design and implement, and there is a strong chance of U-turn or dilution before it ever becomes reality. I wouldn’t throw away those old A-level books yet!

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Units of measure

As part of its Brexit opportunities operation, the UK government is considering raising the prominence of imperial measures over metric. In June, it put out a public consultation rather quietly – I only realised it was there yesterday and the deadline is tomorrow (26th August)!

Here’s the link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/choice-on-units-of-measurement-markings-and-sales

Basically, they’re giving two options for UL traders: imperial only, or imperial with metric less prominent. No option for metric/ SI units only. Rather a loaded consultation, but worth completing if you have time and inclination, otherwise we’ll all be going back to acres, ounces and furlongs.

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National Numeracy Day

Well, it comes around every year alarmingly quickly and pretty much caught me out this year. It’s National Numeracy Day today, so go on the National Numeracy website (doesn’t have to be today!) to check out their resources, including a quick quiz to test your numeracy skills.
https://www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk

And you don’t need to be a student either. National Numeracy is for people of any age and any confidence level.

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World Education Summit 2022

Two weeks ago I attended the World Education Summit 2022 in. Sharm-el-Sheikh as a speaker. The event was a success, attended by around 180 delegates mainly from the Arab regions.

I presented sessions on York Global Mathematics and York Global Science, the two K-12 courses currently launching from York Press.


My main session was entitled The Universal Language, on the global universality of maths and science.

http://www.worldeducationsummit.com