The importance of getting a radical Narrative Mathematics Course established in schools is underlined by the recent financial verdict that interest rates are likely to go down again… back towards zero. This, it is thought, will happen sooner rather than later.  These rates reflect the intrinsic demand for business investment […]

It is impossible to over-state the seriousness of the fiasco surrounding ‘New Maths for Schools’ which imploded disastrously in the 1970s. It was, from the beginning,  a fantasy based on an ideological single-mindedness, a specialised (‘modern mathematics’) mindset  which turned its back on a panorama of ordinary human pursuits and […]

There has been a chronic crisis situation in school mathematics since the 1980s when an alternative (i.e. a remedy) to ‘New Maths for Schools’ was urgently needed. The broad outlines of a replacement were suggested by the much hyped  Cockcroft Report Mathematics Counts (HMSO 1982).  It threw attention onto the […]

Thought experiments putting us in the shoes of our prehistoric ancestors are the best way to get a secure, grounded view of how maths began. If we do this the “essential nature” of maths becomes plain. It is a kind of kit of written symbols which can be used to […]