The Guardian, Saturday 5 September 2009.
Rising pass rates in maths exams have not been matched by an improvement in mathematical understanding
Education is the Singapore government's top priority, says Mike Baker
Lessons from Singapore, The Guardian, Tuesday 17 February 2009
Education is the Singapore government's top priority, says Mike Baker How do you achieve a school system consistently in the top three in the world for maths and science, fourth for literacy, and described by experts as leading the world in teaching quality? Moreover, how do you manage to get 80% of pupils to pass five or more O-levels when they are taught in their second language in classes of 35? The answers are found in Singapore.
The Independent Thursday, 2 July 2009: It sounds crazy but Singapore has shot up the league tables by dropping traditional methods from its maths lessons and getting children to be creative. Ling Yuan, head of maths at the Catholic High School in Singapore, was in Britain last week conducting seminars for home educators and maths teachers and visiting schools.
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Mr Balls will say that from 2011 he is ending the multi-million pound contract with private company Capita to deliver the strategies.Earlier this month, Mr Balls told a teaching conference: "I think the right thing for us to do now is to move away from what has historically been a rather central view of school improvement through national strategies to something which is essentially being commissioned not from the centre but by schools themselves."
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The traditional course, based on problem-solving, is credited with keeping the former British colony top of the world for maths and science, according to the watchdog Trends In International Mathematics And Science Study.
The Los Angeles Times: At L.A. school, Singapore math has added value
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Singapore is a prosperous, multicultural, multilingual nation of 4.5 million people whose fourth- and eighth-grade students have never scored lower than No. 1 in a widely accepted comparison of global math skills, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. U.S. students score in the middle of the pack.
When the U.S. Department of Education commissioned a study in 2005 to find out why, it concluded, in part: “Singapore’s textbooks build deep understanding of mathematical concepts through multi-step problems and concrete illustrations that demonstrate how abstract mathematical concepts are used to solve problems from different perspectives.”
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Almost half of England's schools are not teaching mathematics well enough, putting too much emphasis on "teaching to the test", inspectors have said.
Pupils should be taught to make sense of mathematics - so they could use it confidently in their everyday lives and were prepared for further study and the workplace.
Chief inspector Christine Gilbert said: "The way mathematics is taught can make a huge difference to the level of enthusiasm and interest for the subject.
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School pupils in Singapore lead the world in maths and science, the latest international report suggests.The researchers said Singapore students at both grade levels were easily the top performers in maths and among the best in science, with the highest average scores.
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"Nearly a quarter of all primary school children are not reaching the levels they need to in basic maths before moving on to secondary school" -Edward Leigh
chairman of the Commons public accounts committee |
