The junking of chunking is bad news for maths pupils

1st February 2013, 12:00am

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The junking of chunking is bad news for maths pupils

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/junking-chunking-bad-news-maths-pupils-1

The recent speech by education minister Elizabeth Truss and subsequent articles about mathematics (“Time to knock chunks out of KS2 maths, minister says”, 25 January) fill me with fear for the next generation of primary children.

Her straw man argument mischievously rubbishes well-tested methods currently being taught. So-called “gridding” and “chunking” are logical learning developments which help children later to understand formal written long multiplication and long division respectively. Teaching these new methods has relieved the problem of the failed maths teaching of the past century: many children who were taught traditional methods of calculation, without understanding how they worked, had little confidence in their arithmetic and became fearful of maths.

I would instead draw ministers’ attention to the most significant problem facing maths education now - the lack of high-quality maths teachers who are willing to enter and stay in a profession which is endlessly dictated to according to the career aspirations of rising ministers, eager to impress their political masters.

Ralph Manning, Lecturer in primary mathematics education, University of East Anglia, and primary teacher.

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