Mathematical Attainments in Primary Schooling: Raising Standards and Reducing Diversity

Concern over poor standards in mathematics among English school leavers has led to a number of government initiatives in recent years. Without a secure foundation of mathematical understanding and competence during the primary school years, later learning in mathematics is problematic. This paper examines recent major initiatives at the primary stage of schooling and their effect on raising standards, including the National Numeracy Strategy and the Improving Primary Mathematics (IPM) project. The latter project, influenced by successful Continental approaches to teaching mathematics, aimed both to raise average standards of attainment and to reduce the large variation in attainment that has, in the past, characterised the performance of English pupils.Although the new teaching approaches, and the innovatively detailed teaching materials, developed by the IPM project have enabled significant improvements to be effected, concern remains over the low attainment in England of an unduly large proportion of pupils (as compared with Continental schools). It is suggested that serious consideration needs to be given to adopting arrangements that are the norm in several other countries — namely, to introduce some flexibility in age of entry to schooling (at present in England this is governed strictly by date of birth). Such a change would, it is suggested, significantly reduce the number of low attainers and range of attainment within a class, and make a teacher's task of successful interactive whole-class teaching more manageable.