What's the point?

'The focus should really be on progress. People complain that the children don't enjoy my subject, and not many of them carry it on to GCSE or A Level, but that's not the point. That's not what OFSTED are looking for. Progress is what really matters.'

That's a direct quote from an 'expert' on an INSET day this week. It terrifies me. I'm all for not needing to be liked as a teacher, and not needing every lesson to be fun, and not sacrificing subject content for the sake of sheer entertainment, but if you're making students dislike your subject, to the extent that they don't want to carry it on, something is wrong. Statements like these, from professionals, make me think that all the Standards and OFSTED stuff about 'teachers should inspire a love of learning' is not being taken seriously. Of course it's harder to measure than academic progress, but we shouldn't chuck it out because of that.

I think, as a maths teacher, that it's massively important that students feel confident working with numbers, and not put off by them for the rest of their lives. Moreover, we may lose our best students from the subject if we take the approach that we don't care if they enjoy it as long as they're learning - the brightest will learn, but they'll drop it as soon as possible. Two kids who now have level 8 in year 9 told me at the start of the year that maths was their worst subject. We need more bright kids doing maths A level.

What about the gender divide? Stats suggest that girls are even more likely to be put off a subject than boys by a 'shut up and learn' approach, and their talents are more likely to be left undiscovered. We can't afford the gender gap in maths to grow any larger.

So much for the top end, what about the other side? If the weakest students don't enjoy maths, they will feel less confident and be even more likely to chuck in the towel and give up. We don't need their motivation to decrease any more - for these students, it will interfere with their progress, and that (so say these experts) is all-important.

Some kids are never going to like maths, say its detractors. Maybe. But we're losing kids who could like maths, at the top end where it's affecting the people we have in the subject, and at the bottom end, where it's affecting progress. Besides, I'm not so sure that some kids will never like maths. Let's try a bit harder before we say that, no?