The point I was trying to make was that problem solving and logic isn’t limited to maths and that interest in logic problems merely demonstrates a thirst for exercising the brain. I could also have added that it is predominantly older people who are into these things, not kids. In fact, it would be interesting to investigate to what degree children are into things like Sudoku - this could have been an interesting direction for the report to take, but instead they merely tacked on an assertion.

Ironically, I found a lot more insight in Marcus du Sautoy’s Guardian article plugging this report than the report itself. Despite an annoying predilection for parroting the report’s slogans, he seems to “get” how to make maths interesting a lot more than the authors of this paper.

Another point which occurred to me the other day: this report claims that the lack of mathematicians has cost the UK economy £9bn since 1990. According to my maths that works out at £500,000,000 a year, which doesn’t actually sound that much and certainly doesn’t sound like a compelling case to change things. Far from understanding the true value of mathematics, Reform seem only capable of understanding the cost, which is a little hollow.

LFAT’s comment is interesting for the total absorption it demonstrates in boundaries, grades and what-have-you, at the expense of any wider sense of what the subject means and what it is supposed to teach. In that sense, LFAT, you’re behind the “progressive” edge of Toryism, I fear, struggling to be born in this paper as it attempts to favour less state control.

I remember reading a Graeme Archer piece on ConHome about education which had all the hallmarks of a Lib Dem approach - less state control, parents to decide to fund and run their own schools how they wanted, local diversity, blah blah blah. All very nice. The commenters then vigorously “agreed” that what was really needed was, er, the return of corporal punishment, the universal wearing of blazers, making exams universally harder, racially segregated schools (no word of a lie) and a general conviction that the Tories should get back into office and really, you know, go round and *sort out the schools*.

Not a clue, any of them. And it’s on display in this paper in attenuated form.

On Sudoku though, it does have mathematical underpinning, doesn’t it? Not because it’s got numbers, but because it’s a spatial logic problem.

No, I’m afraid even an F at GCSE still doesn’t necessarily make you innumerate. To be innumerate, you much be unable to count, do simple mental arithmetic, not know your times tables, and so forth. None of this is what the GCSE maths syllabus tests for, it is about basic algebra, geometry, how to draw graphs and things of that nature. Things of interest to mathematicians, rather than maths needed in ones daily life.

Basic mental arithmetic is taught in primary school, and assessed in the “Application of Number” Key Skills exam.

Regarding grade boundaries, they are set according to how well people actually perform. If the majority of students find a particular paper more difficult, then the grade boundaries will be adjusted downwards to compensate. Actually, it’s a bit more complex than that, and involves a lot of esoteric formulae and bell curves and suchlike, but you get the general idea.

But that isn’t my main beef with the paper.

For example, the A-grade boundary on EDEXCEL’s GCSE maths paper a couple of years back was 48% - can you imagine how low a grade C boundary would be?

http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com

I really am surprised that learning is still uncool. If you compare what sort of money educated people make to uneducated, you would have thought that learning would be quite attractive, whether or not the tabloid media is force-feeding the general public a diet of footballers, movie stars and pointless celebrities.