Learning maths is difficult for children

BBC Breakfast Time referred to new research that children possess anxiety when doing maths and that developing understanding is of vital importance in the subject. To describe it as ‘new’ research appears to be misrepresentation. All was being cited was the fundamental finding of the Cockcroft Report 1982 (Available on web), which took five years to research and compile.

The findings of his research was that there was a seven years spread in children’s mathematical attainment across the English speaking countries, which correlates what has since been established about the spread of working memory capacity, and that even intelligent people experience difficulty in the subject. He argued, however much the teaching of the subject is developed, there relative differences would remain.

Cognitive research suggests that it takes 10,000 hours to develop subject mastery The B.B.C. Wales

“School Swap: South Korean Style” in December 2016 illustrated children spending up to ten hours day ‘sweat shop’ hours on their schooling there, but the Korean Government had created a curfew to protect their children’s health and well-being and they were developing a much broader school curriculum.

Cockcroft advised that a lower grade maths examination should be created to provide children a sense of achievement, not failure. In pure terms many children will not need to use all the maths they learn in school in their adult lives. The Welsh Government has implemented this. The real problem with maths standards is the consequences of political dreams and interference. Maths has and will always remain a difficult subject for many children to learn.