The only surprising thing about the recent Inspectors’ report on the 2001 key stage 2 mathematics results is that anyone is surprised that early progress in numeracy standards has juddered to an embarrassing halt. Large amounts of money, training and new methods will promote and ensure initial interest and achievement but not long-term progress. Because initiatives come one after the other, it is hardly surprising that these then take priority. The Government thinks it is possible to keep all plates spinning all of the time. Such naivety is of no help to those struggling to improve on last year’s performances. Nor is a benchmark (level 4) for which there is no scientific or educational evidence that this is what an 11-year-old should achieve.

Level 4, whatever it means, was once regarded as the achievement of an average 11-year-old. Suddenly it became the expected level. And then we had the idea that 75 per cent of pupils should be above average! You cannot move the goal posts, change their size and still expect pupils and teachers to achieve the unachievable.

In Mathematics Counts (1982) the Cockroft Committee wrote that maths was “a difficult subject to teach and to learn”. I later learned that they wished they had never said this. Although I would not tell children this for obvious reasons, I do believe that teachers need to appreciate that it is a difficult subject to teach and to learn. And until governments realise that teaching for understanding is just as important an objective as competency (probably more so) then progress will fluctuate.

During Maths 2001,the Government again quoted the Cockroft comment about maths being a difficult subject and again there were some who argued that this was not a helpful remark. Well, is it easy to teach, for example, that 34 is equal to 14 of 3? Or that 3 V 4 = 34? And what level of understanding is required to master these concepts? You need only look at multiplication to show that even something as simple as this can still be problematic. Ask children what 6 x 7 means. Ask them to give you a real life situation in which you would have to calculate 6 x 7. Ask what 6 x 7 = 42 means. See what level of understanding they really have. You will be surprised and probably shocked.

Do they know that 6 x 7 can mean 6 lots of 7 or 7 lots of 6 depending on how you read the notation? Do they know that 6 x 7 = 42 either means 6 lots of 7 added together (or 7 lots of 6 added together)? Do they know that 6 x 7 could equal 3 x 14. Do they know that 42 is just one possible answer, the expected answer, but just one of an infinite number of possible responses. I would argue that teaching for understanding is not commonplace and until it is the central objective, together with problem solving, then standards of competency will remain superficial and progress will remain inconsistent.

Peter Critchley is former advisory teacher for maths and numeracy manager in Suffolk