I despair of the education system.

Haylescom

KS2 children have to learn to convert metric to imperial and vice versa. We might be metric but we still buy milk in pints and drive in miles.

bylromarha

You'll be pleased to know there will be national times tables tests from next year

Another stick to beat schools with.

I learnt mine by rote, lots of time was devoted to it in class. Schools these days have far far more in the maths curriculum by the end of primary school than I did in the 80s. I know my 11 yr old son was learning things in year 6 which I learnt in Year 9.

Add that in to the english requirements for year 6, and we're setting even more kids up to fail.

Good luck with this test
Friends who are doing/have done english MAs are reporting scores of 7,8,9. Not yet seen anyone claim 10/10.

daveyjp

Nothing to do with age or modern education.

I bought a coffee, a cake bar and some sweets today.

The till threw a wobbly so I asked him to add it and sort the till later, he couldn't add £1.60, 50p and 70p, so I did it for him and was honest about the change from £5 as he gave £1 too much.

He was about 70 so according to the OP must have had a brilliant education?

ElefantEd

All my kids learned their times tables in primary school, and are regularly tested on it I doubt this has changed much. Older children (those in secondary school) tend to worse at mental arithmetic as they don't have to practice!

In defence of children nowadays, there's an awful lot more to learn about, in the sciences at least. For example, you get relativity and quantum mechanics in Scottish Highers; I studied these at University and 100 years ago they weren't even thought of!

swingaloo

Where I work we deal with incoming stock which has to be checked and counted before being accepted.

One day last week I was working with my manager who is in his 30s and he was used a calculator to do 10 x 10.

Prior to that I had asked a colleague to bring half a dozen units of a certain product. The reply was 'How many is half a dozen?.
I'm often shocked at the standard of emails I get from managers-
'Can you wright the numbers on the bored before the meeting' is one of many gems. I've had to forward emails to outside companies which have been written by our management and they are embarrassing.

Its like every other aspect of our culture. Standards are slipping.

prosaver

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I used to teach students on an A level equivalent course, all of whom had at least a C for GCSE Maths. It was always depressing when about half the group used a calculator to work out a 50% discount.

it all starts from the early years ... transmission..
they messed up with me, i ended up in my final year,
doing the same lessons when i was 12 in my old school:mad:

GwylimT

bylromarha wrote: »

You'll be pleased to know there will be national times tables tests from next year

Another stick to beat schools with.

I learnt mine by rote, lots of time was devoted to it in class. Schools these days have far far more in the maths curriculum by the end of primary school than I did in the 80s. I know my 11 yr old son was learning things in year 6 which I learnt in Year 9.

Add that in to the english requirements for year 6, and we're setting even more kids up to fail.

Good luck with this test
Friends who are doing/have done english MAs are reporting scores of 7,8,9. Not yet seen anyone claim 10/10.

That is true, my daughter is only in year two, she is learning things my son would have learned in year 4/5 (he is mid twenties), so even in that relatively short time a concept is being learned two years earlier and it is being given less time as there is more content to cover. She covers far more topics in her subjects than our son did as the national curriculum is now requiring far more.

I scored eight on the test, not bad considering English is my third language!

Haylescom

This year's year two pupils will have to do two reading comprehension papers, a spelling test, a grammar test, a mental calculation test and another maths paper. None of these help their education, they just show how well they've learnt to pass a test.
As for the year 6 papers; horrendous.

Nick_C

Ectophile wrote: »

We went metric years ago. So no feet and inches any more. We don't use pennies and shillings either.

And that's part of the problem. Years ago, we were all adept at doing arithmetic to base 12 and base 20 as well as base 10. Add on the ha'pennies (and for those a few years older than me the farthings) and we were doing fractions as well. Shop assistants would write down the prices in £sd on a paper bag, add it all up, and work out the change in their heads. (For example, if the bill was one pound one shilling and sevenpence ha'penny, and you offered two ten bob notes and half a crown, you knew you were due tenpence ha'penny change; a sixpence, a "thruppenny" bit, a penny and a ha'penny.) Decimalisation has made us lazy.

And we didn't just learn "times tables", we learned "money tables" (twelve pence one shilling, 18 pence one and six etc)

It surprises me though how young people continue to measure their weight in stones and pounds and their height in feet and inches.

[Deleted User]

Ectophile wrote: »

So why do kids still need to learn the 11 and 12 times tables?

Many products (the aforementioned tins for example) come in packs of 12.

Take a look around the supermarket, and see how many cartons contain 12 cans/bottles/jars.

Then there's eggs.