Maths problems

THANK you, Tom Utley, for highlighting dyscalculia (Mail) — a difficulty in dealing with numbers.

My daughter has this condition, but unfortunately there is little provision at schools because teachers don’t know how to tap into a neurodivergent brain.

My daughter is 15 and will be taking her GCSEs in the summer. The maths paper may as well be written in a foreign language.

She wants to go to college to do a beauty course and has been accepted, but if pupils don’t get at least grade 4 in GCSE maths, they have to keep retaking it until they pass or reach the age of 18. NICOLA WORDEN, Weymouth, Dorset. I HAD a grammar school education and many maths teachers, none of whom managed to help me. I failed elementary arithmetic and O-level maths was beyond me.

However, I did very well in other subjects and went on to have a long and successful career in healthcare. I can cope perfectly well with day to day numerical issues.

Young people must be treated as the precious individuals they are, not squeezed into a mould.

The education system sets itself up for failure if everyone is expected to study up to the age of 18 subjects that they dislike and are clearly not able to understand.

JENNIFER JACKSON,

Tunbridge Wells, Kent.