Mathematics from 5 to 16: Responses to Curriculum Matters 3 1987

A resource from the National Curriculum Council (NCC). This booklet from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (HMI) was a response to Mathematics from 5 to 16 1985, which was the third in a series intended to stimulate discussion about the curriculum as a whole and about its individual components. All responses from the consultative process were analysed by HMI .

This Inspectorate paper, drawing as it does on the propositions put forward in Mathematics from 5 to 16 and on the comment prompted by it, provided one means of carrying forward a professional view about the objectives of the 5 to 16 curriculum to advise and inform those concerned with developing national and local policies.

It also served to inform and stimulate further discussion focusing on the purposes, principles and objectives of mathematics teaching especially those important matters which are contentious and required further consideration. Pre-eminent among these are the need to agree on the feasibility of setting age-related mathematical objectives for most pupils and on the attention to be given to standard written methods of calculation in a society which increasingly uses calculators.