Catherine

Today’s KS2 maths reasoning paper is a failure at a national level, one which will serve only to put pupils off maths. There is nothing wrong with tough questions in maths. Mathematicians love the challenge of overcoming difficult problems. But that’s not the same thing at all as questions that seek to confuse, mislead or hide meaning in meaningless, tiresome contexts. Show a real mathematician a problem written by someone who is deliberately communicating badly or poking fun by being disingenuous and that mathematician will tell you to bugger off. We’re in the business of grappling with and resolving genuinely interesting and important questions. We have no interest in silly, dull and ill conceived questions that lack meaning and intend to trip up. So, an opportunity to show pupils what mathematics is and can be has been utterly wasted and instead we’ve just made it a lot less likely a nascent interest in becoming a mathematician will flourish for many, many pupils who will, quite rightly, reject the subject as tedious sleight of hand. To those writing, signing off and publishing national exam papers: be better at your job or do something else.