Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) I beg to move, That this House has
considered National Numeracy Day. It is a pleasure to serve under
your chairmanship, Dame Maria. I declare an interest as a graduate
in physics and maths. I have had a particular interest in this
subject for a long time; indeed, I have three maths A-levels.
Yesterday was the 11th anniversary of National Numeracy Day—a day
earmarked for the championing of everyday maths. We learn
various...Request free trial
(Harrow East) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered National Numeracy Day.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. I
declare an interest as a graduate in physics and maths. I have
had a particular interest in this subject for a long time;
indeed, I have three maths A-levels.
Yesterday was the 11th anniversary of National Numeracy Day—a day
earmarked for the championing of everyday maths. We learn various
different aspects of maths at school, but it is important to
remember that the purpose of maths is to inspire everyone, at
whatever age and from whatever gender or socioeconomic
background, to possess the confidence and skills to competently
understand numbers and be able to apply them in our day-to-day
lives. We do not use trigonometry or Pythagoras’ theorem when
doing the weekly food shop, but basic numeracy crops up all the
time. When writing this speech, for instance, I had to estimate
how long to speak for to keep my colleagues interested and not
allow them to doze off for too long.
Numeracy is the ability to apply numbers in everyday life, solve
problems, make informed decisions and seize the opportunities
that are presented as a result. National Numeracy is an
independent charity. It was initially funded by one of the big
four multinational professional services networks, namely KPMG.
Since launching, it has attracted a growing number of
organisations that recognise the importance of improving the
nation’s numeracy. Since 2012, through National Numeracy Day the
charity has helped over 2.7 million people unlock new levels of
potential, be that in school, work or their personal lives. One
of the concerns is about the number of people who leave school
without basic numeracy capabilities.
It is not until we really think about it that we realise how
prominent mathematics is in our day-to-day activities. It is
crucial for developing logical thinking and for reasoning
strategies. I will give a few examples of where mathematics come
in. Financially, it is important to have the appropriate skills
to understand our payslips, calculate mortgage rates or rental
payments, account for bills or any other outgoings, pay for items
either through cash or card, and make sure we are not being
ripped off. Practically, we use maths to negotiate journey times,
plan the food shop, use cooking recipes, read the time and relate
distances for travel. Recreationally, we might use the skills in
music, when playing sport, to set time limits on phones or even
with driving. It is prominent everywhere, and we must understand
that maths is vital.
For those who significantly struggle with numeracy or who lack
confidence, it is extremely difficult to get through the basic
tasks we undertake daily. Research has shown that people who have
low maths skills are increasingly vulnerable to debt, fraud,
financial exclusion and unemployment. In 2020 it was estimated
that more than two thirds of unemployed adults possessed
extremely low numeracy skills. This is a consequence of not
acquiring the skills in school or early life.
As a nation, we are often regarded as one of the richest and most
powerful countries globally. Despite this stature, our numeracy
levels are significantly below the average for developed
countries, ranking just 21st in the widely-recognised Survey of
Adult Skills. The consequence is a cost to the UK economy of
millions of pounds—in unemployment, poor health and treatment
costs—as well as a widening of the skills gap between those who
are highly skilled and those who are not. To give an idea of how
much it is costing, Pro Bono Economics recently commissioned data
estimating that up to £25 billion is lost in earnings each year
owing entirely to low numeracy skills.
Across the UK, low confidence and competence when dealing with
numbers disproportionately affects disadvantaged communities,
with deprivation of numeracy skills traditionally being passed on
from one generation to another. It is even more important,
therefore, that those people have access to easy, supportive and
free recourses to help to improve such struggles, and prevent
future generations from adopting those anxieties. Staggeringly,
half of working-age adults in this country—more than 16 million
people—have numerical skills equivalent to those of a
primary-school leaver. That has led to more than half of young
adults admitting that they have avoided a particular job,
interview or qualification, thereby hindering their full
potential, because they feared that it would involve using
mathematics when they had no confidence in doing so.
There is also a distinct gender gap with regard to number
confidence. Women are significantly less confident than men when
self-assessing their numeracy skills—so much so that they feel
twice as anxious about maths, and consequently are
disproportionately affected by negative experiences with maths at
school. Unless we encourage young women to take up maths and
develop those skills, we will never close the gender pay gap,
which we all wish to see removed.
Children are undeniably far more impressionable than adults. The
very make-up of those whippersnappers’ brains allows them to
absorb information faster and much more efficiently. It is
therefore of the utmost importance that nurseries, schools and
education centres are taking the opportunity to equip our youth
with the skills necessary to possess numerical competence and
confidence. Teachers and learning assistants undergo vast
training to get to their positions. They are advised on the
syllabus and learning techniques that are required to educate,
and hopefully have an in-depth knowledge of the subject. It is
clearly far better to have those experts teach our children, so
that the information they learn is accurate, rather than
struggling to teach themselves at a much later stage, with a risk
of misunderstanding and not being corrected. If a child does not
have a good teacher, they often have to rely on their parents. If
the parents are averse to maths, that can cause a challenging
intergenerational cycle.
If children are taught how to competently negotiate bus
timetables, money and other numerical skills, interfrastically it
prepares them for life. It is essential that they are taught such
skills as youngsters to ensure that they do not lack the
understanding once they have reached adulthood, and therefore are
able to gain greater independence. When stripped of such skills,
people are immediately dependent on others and have to rely on
the honesty of others, subjecting them, sadly, to a high
possibility of being taken advantage of. In many cases, people
doing a big shop do not know whether the bill they are being
charged is correct, because they are unable to add up in their
heads the rough cost of what they are buying as they go. Only
when they get to the till do they realise. Even then, they may
not pay the right amount, so there is a real challenge to
everyday life.
I am very pleased that earlier this year the Prime Minister
announced his ambition that all school pupils in England will
have to study some form of mathematics until the age of 18. That
does not mean that they will have to study in detail the sort of
things that would be studied for A-levels and at degree level,
but it does mean that basic mathematics will be understood by
someone leaving secondary school. Some believe that that will
have inconsequential results, but it will drastically increase
the UK’s productivity and give stronger emphasis to the huge
importance of possessing competent numerical skills. It will also
equip school-leavers with a quantitative and statistical
intellect, which is needed for many of today’s jobs and those of
the future. For example, we have heard today of different
companies requiring artificial intelligence and reducing the
number of people involved. Well, if people have high mathematical
skills, that will mean they will be able to do the higher-skilled
jobs required in the future.
I am encouraged that the Government have recognised the impact of
the pandemic on education and responded by establishing a
national tutoring programme, investing over £1 billion to bring
children’s education up to speed. By 2024, over 6 million
tutoring packages will have been delivered to support struggling
children. That is an important provision to come out of the
pandemic, because if children have not been in classrooms, it has
been quite a challenge for teachers to teach them these skills,
and recovering from that position is all-important.
Many people only realise when they reach adulthood the impact of
their lagging numeracy. I reiterate: it is by no means too late
to improve, and it should not be something to be embarrassed
about, ignored or avoided at all costs—far from it. We need to
normalise later learning and asking for help, because doing so
will open so many doors. People who face a challenge in getting
back into the employment market can acquire these skills and
therefore acquire a better job with better rates of pay. More
than 9 million people in the UK rate their numeracy as low and
86% say that their financial knowledge is also minimal. Surely
that emphasises the need for more later learning in such matters.
This is a case of getting not just schoolchildren to catch up but
also adults who may have been failed in the past.
National Numeracy hosts a vast range of programmes, initiatives
and campaigns to help adults to take the leap and improve their
numeracy in a bite-sized and approachable way. Thousands of
testimonies tell us that the programmes have boosted people’s
confidence and drastically reduced the anxiety that surrounds
mathematics for many people. The charity has found that the most
influential way to support adults is to help them first to
understand the value of numeracy in their lives, which is clearly
important, and then to help them to experience quick success,
which builds their belief in their ability and capability to use
mathematics.
This Government, who I am proud to support, are a great champion
of lifelong learning, and are investing £560 million in the
Multiply programme to give thousands of adults the opportunity to
gain employer-valued maths qualifications, and to improve their
skills through Multiply’s easy-to-use and accessible digital
platform.
As I come to the end of my speech, I thank my colleagues for
attending. I look forward to hearing others’ remarks—if not from
the Back Benches, from the various party spokesmen and indeed
from the Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend the Member
for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (). I hope that, if nothing else,
this debate can inspire a few people to make a conscious effort
to improve their numeracy skills and in turn unlock an unlimited
number of new opportunities.
On National Numeracy Day, we aim to break the taboo that maths is
scary, not cool or impossible. Indeed, maths is the gateway to
many amazing opportunities. The National Numeracy campaign, the
Government, local schools and Protect Pure Maths are always
available to offer help and support. The message to people out
there is: be sure to get in touch; if you fear your maths skills
are not up to speed, look for opportunities to improve your
capability, gain confidence, gain new abilities and, if nothing
else, improve your basic skills.
Finally, I thank all those at National Numeracy who made
yesterday such a success and wish the charity all the best for
the rest of the events it is hosting throughout May.
3.14pm
(Glenrothes) (SNP)
It is my pleasure, Dame Maria, to contribute to this debate. Like
the hon. Member for Harrow East (), I am a physics and a wee bit of maths graduate. A
long, long time ago, I qualified as a physics and maths teacher,
although I sometimes say that it is so long ago that I have
forgotten half the physics I learned and Stephen Hawking proved
that the other half was wrong.
As the hon. Gentleman said, we use numbers every day of our
lives, very often without realising it, but a lot of people are
scared of them—sometimes, too scared to even try to get over
their fears. People go through their entire lives avoiding
particular occasions that might show them up or make them think
they look silly because their basic numeracy skills are not as
good as they would like them to be. For people of my age, some of
it is to do with bad experiences at school. Certainly when I went
to school, teachers had a habit of humiliating any pupil who was
struggling with any part of their work. Thankfully, that does not
happen now.
When I go into the schools in my constituency, I am very
encouraged by how supportive and patient teachers and other
school staff are with pupils who, in my day, would just have been
left behind. I am also amazed when I look at some of the
techniques that are used now, particularly with children at a
very young age, to get them speaking numbers in pretty much the
same way as they learn to speak their native language without
really understanding how the grammar works. The contribution that
is being made by teachers at every stage of education in Scotland
and the rest of the United Kingdom is making a big difference in
helping young people to learn essential skills, and there is no
doubt that numeracy is one of the most essential.
Not only am I a graduate in two very numerical disciplines, but I
was lucky enough to be absolutely fascinated by numbers when I
was a wee boy; I could not get enough of them. That, plus the
fact that I was probably one of a small minority of children at
the time for whom the education system was well suited, meant
that I did very well. I sailed through my maths exams at school.
I used to do maths Higher papers for fun, to relax after I had
spent an evening studying for my other exams.
Sometime towards the end of my first year at Glasgow University,
the maths caught up with me and I clawed my way along by my
fingertips for the remainder of my degree, but because I still
love playing with numbers, it makes it genuinely difficult for me
to get the concept that people find numbers scary. There is no
doubt that an awful lot of people do. If we could get an honest
assessment of 650 MPs, we would probably find that most of them,
or certainly a significant number, will try to avoid doing
anything with too many numbers in it, or they will get someone in
their office to do the number part of a briefing or a speech they
are preparing.
On National Numeracy Day, the Deputy Prime Minister did not know
how many years the SNP had been in Government in the Scottish
Parliament. It may simply be that he had forgotten the year we
first got elected, and mistook it for the much more recent coming
to power of the Conservatives, but it was an interesting—although
I suppose light-hearted—way to mark such an important day.
I have heard people say that they have never tried a sudoku
puzzle because they are no good at maths. A sudoku puzzle has
numbers in it, but there is nothing mathematical about it. We
could put in letters, shapes or wee dogs of nine different kinds,
and the puzzle would be exactly the same; there is something
about seeing a lot of numbers or an array of numbers that puts
people off. The more we try to understand what does that to
people, the quicker we can help them set aside their fears and
get familiar with numbers, in the same way as when we find out
what makes people scared of other languages when they get to
certain age, we may be able to change the fact that the UK as a
whole is shamefully bad at second, third and fourth languages.
Children who are brought up bilingual become expert linguists
when they are a wee bit older, so there may be something to think
about there.
I mentioned sudoku puzzles, but basic skills in numeracy are not
just important to be able to do puzzles—in the sudoku puzzles,
they are not important at all. Numeracy is an essential skill for
everyone to be able to look out for themselves. As the hon.
Member for Harrow East said, it is important for understanding
the strengths and weaknesses of different financing offers, such
as mortgages or bank loans. We had to bring in regulations about
how the annual percentage rate is calculated in order to
standardise it across the whole industry and make it a
requirement to be brought to the attention of any customer before
they sign on the dotted line, because the sales reps—the conmen
and women—were presenting numbers in a very misleading way,
knowing that a significant number of their victims, or customers,
would not spot what they were up to.
Even a lot of people who think they are numerate do not
understand what happens when different probabilities are
combined. That can make someone who spends their time at the
bookies or online gambling an easy target. A lot of people, for
example, think that if they are being offered 10 lottery tickets
per pound, it is better odds than one lottery ticket per pound,
but if everybody gets 10 tickets and there is the same amount of
prize money, their chances are exactly the same. People are
encouraged to gamble more because the chances of success are made
to look much better than they are.
We need people to be more numerate so that they can avoid being
taken in when politicians use numbers to try to completely
deceive them. There is a well-known saying: “Figures don’t lie,
but liars figure.” Clearly, nobody present would ever think to do
this, but every single time I go into the main Chamber I will
hear a politician deliberately using numbers and statistics in
such a way that will cause people to believe something that is
not true. Technically that is not lying, but it is still
deceitful. We could do with losing it entirely from our public
life, but we could also prevent it from being successful by
helping people understand what different combinations of numbers
and percentages mean.
I am sad to say that the first example I can find comes from the
late, much-lamented , an absolute stalwart of
the SNP. The first time I was old enough to vote was in 1979, and
I was swithering between the SNP and the Labour party, which is
what my dad, grandad and great-grandad had always gone for. In a
party political broadcast a few days before the election, was tearing into the record
of the Labour Government on inflation. I think she said that over
a five-year period prices had gone up by 50%, meaning that the
pound in the pocket was worth only 50p compared with five years
previously. But that was not true. As an 18-year-old first-year
student at the University of Glasgow, I knew that, and I suspect
I would have known it when I was 10 or 11. It did dent my
confidence in the SNP of those days that it had been able to put
that into a party political broadcast and nobody had picked up on
it.
More importantly, a few years ago, we had a really serious issue
with the marking and awarding of results in Scotland’s exams
during lockdown. Students could not have exams, so all results
had to be based on the school’s predictions and assessments of
how pupils were likely to have done. That is never going to be a
fail-safe system. Education Scotland wanted to have a pass rate
that was about the same as usual, because universities would not
have bought it if everybody had passed, so it had to come up with
some way of amending the figures. That meant that it was very
difficult to explain why some people had passed and some had
failed.
One of the things that got me was that the teachers
understandably spoke up on behalf of their pupils, saying things
like, “We filled in the assessments, and our prediction was that
everybody in the class would pass.” But that is not what they had
done. They had considered each individual pupil in the class and
said, “I think the probability is that that child will pass.”
However, if we add a lot of individual high probabilities, we can
end up with a very low probability. For example—I checked this
just before I started speaking—we could say that an individual
pupil is 90% likely to pass an exam. However, if there is a class
of seven pupils, each of whom is 90% likely to pass, the
probability that all seven will pass is less than 50%. With a
class of 30, it is almost certain that they would not all pass.
There is no way of predicting which one will and which one will
not—and that is assuming that the 90% estimate is anything other
than a guess.
Numeracy is also about interpreting what numbers mean, rather
than simply being able to play with them. It is about being able
to spot when people are using numbers to put a precision and
reliability on a piece of information that does not really
deserve it. I do not like it when numbers are applied to
something that should be assessed by way of a judgment. We can
say that we think that someone will pass their exam or driving
test, but putting a number to it makes it look like a hard,
scientific fact, because that is what we usually use numbers for.
We have to make sure that people are able to tell the difference
between numbers that are used in the right context, correctly and
accurately, and numbers that are misused, as they all too often
are, in a way that is designed to con people.
I have a number of times had to look into investment-type scams
that have caught out my constituents. In the information that is
sent out to people in order to reel them in, at some point there
is usually something that somebody with high numeracy skills
would have spotted, so they would have known there was a catch to
the guaranteed investment scheme, guaranteed pension scheme or
whatever it is. The scams are deliberately worded in such a way
as to prevent the vast majority of people from spotting where the
catch is.
That leads me to the need for much better financial education. I
heard today at the Public Accounts Committee that about 25% of
young people leaving school think they are financially educated
to the extent that they need to be to survive in today’s
financial world. Everybody here knows this, but let me say for
the record that 25% is not enough.
I am looking at the number on the clock that tells me how long I
have been speaking, and at the faces of Members who are probably
thinking that it has been more than long enough, so I will draw
my remarks to a close. Numbers are important, but sometimes they
do not tell the whole story. The number of Members here today is
not a measure of how important our colleagues think adequate
numeracy is. It really is an essential skill. I cannot speak for
England, but in Scotland we have certainly made a lot of progress
in improving numeracy skills, particularly of vulnerable young
people and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. That said, we
have to go much further.
3.25pm
(Portsmouth South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Maria. I
thank the hon. Member for Harrow East () for opening the debate. It is a pleasure to be
speaking about National Numeracy Day, even if it is a day after
it. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it National
Numeracy Day plus one.
I pay tribute to all the maths teachers, tutors and numeracy
charities across the country. Maths can be a trickier subject
than others for some people, but the hard work of teachers,
teaching assistants, tutors, parents and volunteers goes such a
long way in educating our nation’s children and improving their
numeracy skills.
The hon. Gentleman made a number of helpful contributions. He is
clearly very qualified to do so, given his three A-levels in
maths. I note that the Minister jotted that down; perhaps he will
encourage the hon. Gentleman to take up a career in maths
teaching one day. I thank him again for securing this debate.
As we have heard, the importance of numeracy cannot be
overstated. The skills that we learn in maths classrooms last us
a lifetime, and we use them every day. As the hon. Gentleman
said, whether it is dividing up a bill at a restaurant, working
out which supermarket deal offers the best value or figuring out
how many days it is until the weekend, we all use maths every
day. However, according to the National Numeracy charity—the
organisation behind National Numeracy Day, as the hon. Gentleman
said—nearly half the UK’s working population have the numeracy
levels expected of an 11-year-old child. Only a fifth are
functionally numerate, measured as the equivalent of a GCSE grade
4 or above. As a result, the UK sits in the bottom half of the
OECD numeracy skills rankings.
Although people sometimes make light of the fact that they are
bad at maths, it really should not be a laughing matter. Poor
numeracy skills impact people’s lives in a real way. They can
impact personal finances too, and leave people more susceptible
to fraud and amassing debt. Skills learned in school are later
needed when it comes to valuing a mortgage deal, planning credit
payments, taking out loans or saving for retirement. As the hon.
Gentleman said, National Numeracy estimates that poor numeracy
costs the economy up to £20 billion per year, as a widespread
lack of confidence with numbers contributes to sluggish
productivity.
These problems clearly require urgent attention, but they are not
fixed by gimmicks, pledges or empty rhetoric. In 2011, the then
Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath
(), said that he would like to
see the vast majority of pupils in England study maths to the age
of 18 within a decade. Of course, the Prime Minister has reheated
that pledge in recent months, but he is yet to explain how he
expects to deliver it given that the Government have failed to
meet their maths teacher recruitment target every year for the
past decade, leading to a total shortfall of more than 5,000
teachers.
Despite the Prime Minister’s words, the problem is not getting
any better. Last year, more teachers left our schools than joined
initial teacher training courses. Under the Conservatives,
teacher vacancies have risen by 246%. The Government’s failure to
recruit and retain teachers has left schools scrambling to fill
roles and asking non-specialist teachers to go above and beyond.
Recent Labour party analysis found that one in 10 maths lessons
in the past year were taught by non-expert teachers, meaning that
high standards are currently for some of our children but not
all. Ministers have also quietly shelved plans for the £100
million digital aspect of Multiply. It was supposed to be
launched last year and was previously described by the Department
as a “critical pillar” in the plan to boost maths skills, and as
the “centrepiece” of the Prime Minister’s push to improve adult
numeracy, but according to recent reports, it has been put on
hold. It remains unclear whether the £100 million earmarked for
the scheme will be used for other numeracy initiatives or whether
the money will go back to the Treasury.
The Government’s levelling-up White Paper set
“a new national mission to ensure that 90% of children leaving
primary school in England are reaching the expected standard in
reading, writing, and maths by 2030.”
But in 2022, 41% of year 6 pupils in England left primary school
without meeting the expected standard. That is 50,000 more
children than 2019. We are moving backwards. The figures are even
worse for children on free school meals, fewer than half of whom
are meeting expected standards by the end of primary school. The
same is true of secondary school, where the attainment gap is now
wider than at any point in the last decade.
The Government will claim that those gaps are due to the
pandemic, but the gap was widening before covid and has worsened
since. Last week, the Education Policy Institute reported that
primary school children are still struggling to catch up on maths
in the wake of covid, with children aged four to 11
“five weeks behind their expectations prior to the outbreak more
than three years ago.”
We should not forget that during the pandemic, the then
Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (), said that he had “maxed out”
funding for children. The hugely damaging impact of the Prime
Minister’s inaction on children’s learning of maths—his alleged
priority—is only beginning to become clear.
In the debate, all Members have said that improving numeracy for
children and adults is extremely important. The first step to
addressing the problem is ensuring that children are taught the
subject properly. That means being taught by experts, not
overstretched teachers covering for their colleagues. That is why
Labour is committed to ensuring that pupils are taught by
specialist teachers in each subject, including maths. We will do
this by recruiting thousands of new teachers across the country,
ensuring that schools are not understaffed, that maths is not
being taught by English teachers and vice versa, and that
teachers are not burnt out from both doing their own job and
covering someone else’s. Once in schools, we will also support
teachers by entitling them to ongoing teacher training, providing
them with the skills and knowledge to thrive—the skills that
teachers tell us they need to develop their professional
expertise in their chosen area—and ensure that every young person
has a teacher with the expertise and time to teach with
confidence and care.
Labour will also look at the curriculum and what young people are
learning as a whole to ensure we are equipping them with the
knowledge and skills they need to thrive in the world and in the
workplace of the future. Under Labour, young people will learn
practical life skills such as pension planning, understanding
credit scores, applying for a mortgage and understanding
employment and rental contracts. We want to see young people
succeed academically and in life. Central to that is developing
literacy and numeracy skills. We will support them to be
ambitious, creative and confident young people, who enjoy music,
arts, sports and culture. We will also support them to be great
communicators, collaborators and problem solvers and to be happy
and successful.
Labour will deliver an excellent education for every child in
every school in every part of the country. In doing so, we will
drive up standards in all areas, including numeracy, and support
all children to fulfil their ambitions. As we have heard, the
importance of numeracy to children’s future life chances is
simply too crucial to not be addressed with immediacy. I
therefore hope the Minister will outline what his Department is
doing to recruit its target number of maths teachers for the
first time in a decade and to retain the brilliant maths teachers
already in the profession, ensuring that our children are taught
by subject specialists.
Can the Minister update the House on his Department’s plans for
the digital platform Multiply, which was set to be launched last
year? It was previously described by the Department as a crucial
pillar in the plan to boost numeracy skills, but according to
recent reports has been put on hold. In his response, it would be
helpful if he could specifically update us on whether the £100
million earmarked for the platform will be used for other
numeracy-focused projects. I look forward to the Minister’s
response, and I thank all colleagues for their contributions to
this important debate.
3.35pm
The Minister for Schools ()
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Maria. I
congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East () on his opening speech, celebrating National
Numeracy Day, which, as everyone has pointed out, was actually
yesterday. I guess someone miscalculated. My hon. Friend was
worried about the length of his speech; it was absolutely the
right length, and kept us all interested. None of us who were
listening nodded off.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Glenrothes () for his excellent speech,
which revealed his clear understanding of maths in general, and
statistics in particular. There was a 50% probability that I was
not going to like his speech, but it turned out I 100% liked it.
I congratulate him on his contribution.
Maths is crucial. We use it every day, whether at work, managing
households, or understanding loans and credit. Without a solid
foundation in the subject, young people risk being shut out of
the careers to which they aspire, and the life they want to lead.
Adults with poor numeracy are more than twice as likely to be
unemployed as those with competent numeracy at age 30. That is
why the Prime Minister announced last month new details of how we
will transform our national approach to maths. We will change the
way the system works so that everyone will study some form of
maths up to 18.
Quality maths education must be built on foundations laid
throughout schooling, starting in primary school. The subject is
an important part of a knowledge-rich curriculum, giving pupils
fluency in key concepts so that they can explore more complex
mathematics in secondary school and beyond. That is why we have
undertaken fundamental reforms to strengthen maths teaching over
the last decade.
Since 2010, the Government have made great strides in improving
maths performance across all ages. The way the subject is taught
has been transformed in schools, based on the best available
international evidence. That includes learning from the approach
used by the countries that perform the highest in maths. We
reformed the national curriculum teaching methods and the use of
textbooks in order to raise standards. More than half of
England’s primary schools have now adopted the mastery-based
pedagogy from south-east Asia. Teaching for mastery has been
supported by 40 beacon schools that demonstrate exemplary
teaching, known as maths hubs, as well as by the National Centre
for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics.
Mastery pedagogy encourages fluent recall of number facts, and
promotes efficient written methods, as well as a whole-class
teaching approach with the objective that no pupil is left
behind. In mastery teaching, as in top-performing jurisdictions
such as Singapore and Shanghai, significant time is spent
developing a deep understanding before moving on to the next part
of the curriculum sequence—teaching the components of
calculation, step by step. That approach to teaching has shown
that wide attainment in the subject is possible. In the 2019
trends in international mathematics and science study survey,
year 5 pupils in England achieved their highest ever mathematics
score of 556, which improved significantly on 546 in 2015.
To complement evidence-based approaches to maths teaching, the
Government introduced more challenging assessments at both
primary and secondary levels. That included the multiplication
tables check in year 4, which was made statutory in 2021. For
pupils who took the check, the mean average score was 19.8
correct answers out of 25, with 27% of pupils achieving full
marks. The Government also introduced new key stage 2 maths
tests, and reformed GCSEs and A-levels. Those assessments ensure
that children master the basics of mathematics before tackling
more demanding content, and match the standards set in the
highest performing countries and jurisdictions around the
world.
The improvement in maths attainment was seen in England’s 2018
Programme for International Student Assessment results, which
were our highest ever for 15-year-olds. PISA assesses the
performance of 15-year-olds in reading, maths and science in
approximately 80 countries. In terms of international league
tables for maths, the UK was 28th in PISA 2009 and moved up to
18th place in PISA 2018.
Last month, the Secretary of State announced plans to expand the
maths hubs programme so that more children can benefit from those
proven teaching methods. By 2025, the proportion of schools
supported by teaching for mastery will expand to 75% of primary
schools and 65% of secondary schools. Maths hubs’ intensive
support will aim to reach the schools that need it most, and they
will also deliver an expansion of the mastering number programme,
which helps children in the first years of primary school to
master the basics of arithmetic, such as number bonds and times
tables. The programme will reach over 8,000 schools by 2024, and
we will also expand it to years 4 and 5 in order to bolster those
cohorts’ fluency in times tables.
Last month’s announcement also included further support for
teachers of 16 to 19-year-olds who are resitting their
mathematics GCSE or functional skills qualification. We know that
teaching for mastery also works for this age group, because an
evaluation showed that GCSE resit students taught by teachers in
the full mastery intervention made one month of additional
progress in maths compared with other students. Tellingly,
students from disadvantaged backgrounds made even greater
progress, averaging two months’ additional progress compared with
other students. Since 2014, 16 to 19-year-olds without maths GCSE
grade 4 or above have been required to continue studying maths,
and more students than ever are now achieving that important
benchmark. In 2021-22, 80.3% of 19-year-olds achieved grade 4 or
equivalent in maths—the highest level on record.
Enhancing pupils’ mathematics requires us to fully support those
capable of the highest attainment in the subject, and since 2018
we have funded the advanced mathematics support programme to
increase participation in core mathematics, AS and A-level
mathematics, and further maths. My hon. Friend has A-levels in
maths and further maths: I am trying to work out what the third
one is, but perhaps he can tell me.
Applied mathematics.
Of course.
The advanced mathematics support programme also supports improved
teaching of level 3 maths qualifications. Additional targeted
support is offered in areas of low social mobility and low
participation in level 3 maths, to increase opportunities for all
students to study the subject beyond the age of 16. Since the
programme began, it has reached 86% of state-funded schools and
colleges in England, with over 3,000 participating in at least
one form of its maths support.
Our reforms and interventions have shown that no pupil’s maths
destiny is fixed, as targeted support and proven teaching methods
can dramatically improve attainment. To build on our progress, we
have announced a fully funded national professional qualification
for primary school maths leaders, to improve pupil outcomes still
further. That will include instruction in how to train other
teachers in maths mastery pedagogy, and we expect it to be
available to all primary schools from February next year. We will
update the targeted support fund for the 2023-24 year to provide
additional funding and incentivise uptake by teachers.
A good understanding of maths has significant benefits for young
people’s economic prospects, as has been discussed in this short
debate, and a mathematically literate population is essential for
a strong economy, as I know my hon. Friend will agree. We are one
of the few countries in the OECD where young people do not
routinely study some form of maths until the age of 18. The Prime
Minister recently confirmed his ambition for all young people to
study maths until the age of 18, which will equip them with the
knowledge they need to succeed, whatever their chosen career.
Indeed, he announced the policy at the London Screen Academy,
which is where young people over the age of 16 are taught to make
movies. If we get this right, it will deliver a transformative
change for our economy and society.
The maths to 18 expert advisory group has now been established to
guide the next stages of our thinking. It will consider both the
maths needed by the changing employment market and the most
effective way that this can be taught. To support those aims, the
Government will commission research on post-16 maths provision
around the world, so that our curriculum can rival those of the
best-performing countries. Additionally, the Institute for
Apprenticeships and Technical Education will work with employers
to review the maths content in apprenticeships. I look forward to
hearing the group’s conclusions on how we can enhance young
people’s maths knowledge before they start work and make Britain
more globally competitive.
Teachers already work tirelessly to deliver high-quality maths
education. Rolling out maths to a substantially larger post-16
cohort will require a greater workforce, trained and equipped to
teach young people the maths skills that they need, and we will
work closely with schools and colleges to do that sustainably. We
are already expanding the Taking Teaching Further programme,
delivering funding for further education colleges to recruit and
offer early career support to those with relevant knowledge and
industry experience to retrain as FE teachers, and we will launch
a financial incentive pilot this year for up to 355 teachers that
will be targeted at some of the hardest to fill subjects,
including maths.
We know it is not enough to bolster the abilities of the
up-and-coming workforce: as has been pointed out by my hon.
Friend the Member for Harrow East, some 8 million adults in
England have maths skills below those expected of a
nine-year-old. We announced the Multiply adult numeracy programme
in 2021, which is the first priority of the UK shared prosperity
fund, the Government’s flagship fund for supporting people and
places. That programme teaches adults maths that they can use in
everyday life, and can support them to attain a formal
qualification, such as functional skills or the GCSE. Some 81
local areas in England are receiving up to £270 million in
funding up to 2024-25, and that programme has already reached
over 10,000 people.
Following National Numeracy Day, I would like to restate the
Government’s commitment to maths as an essential pillar of
children’s education. It enables them to build logical thinking
and intellect, while equipping them with practical competency for
work and life. The Prime Minister wants to change how we value
maths as a country while making a positive difference to people’s
lives, their career prospects and the economy, and we hope to
build on the advances in school-age teaching in the past decade
to ensure that every young person leaves education with the maths
they need to succeed in modern life.
3.47pm
Thank you, Dame Maria, for presiding over the debate, and I thank
colleagues for their contributions. The hon. Member for
Glenrothes () posed a number of questions
and highlighted a number of examples of the bad use of maths
that, I suspect, would have had many of our colleagues scratching
their heads, not quite understanding what he was alluding to.
That probably demonstrates why so few of our colleagues have come
to speak in today’s debate.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth South () reminded me of Douglas
Adams, one of my favourite authors who is sadly deceased. Apart
from writing “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, he also
wrote “The Meaning of Liff”, and one of the great words I always
remember from that book is “bodmin”—when a group of friends go
out, the bill is presented and everyone puts in what they
consider to be their share, there is always a balance left. That
is a “bodmin”—the balance that someone has failed to calculate. I
thank the hon. Member for his offer of taking up a mathematics
tutorship, but I am looking forward to continuing to represent
the good citizens of Harrow East for many years to come.
My right hon. Friend the Minister, of course, has relayed exactly
what the Government are laying out on numeracy. One of the
important points that the Government are taking action on is
rolling out a clear programme for young people in schools and
beyond, enabling them to acquire those skills. We need to combat
the gender gap in maths as well, because at the moment, from
bitter experience, young women tend to move away from mathematics
in an unfair way. Those who do go into mathematics are highly
skilled and brilliant and succeed in life, but we need to get
this idea that mathematics is not cool—it is not for them—out of
the system in many respects. Equally, I was glad that the
Minister relayed some of the actions that the Government are
taking to combat the lack of numeracy in older people. That is
holding our country back, and we need to ensure that those people
who possibly have a great fear of maths and do not want to share
that fact get the skills they need, so that they can contribute
to our society in a far better way.
Dame Maria, I thank you and others for the debate. I thank the
Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to have it, and note
the fact that we have managed to continue the debate long after
the main Chamber has adjourned. That just proves how important
mathematics is, not only in today’s society but in the
future.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered National Numeracy Day.
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