If British Columbia education policy wanted to promote growth in numeracy and mathematics, the curriculum would provide opportunities to use mathematical concepts in social situations and give students time to move from concrete to abstract thought. Instead, the curriculum emphasizes extensive mechanical understanding and algorithmic manipulation…

Illustrates aspects of a reflective mathematics education using a project for 14- and 15-year olds. Argues for organizing mathematics education to develop different types of knowing: mathematical skills and concepts; technological competence in applications and mathematical model building; and reflective evaluations of consequences. (53…

Addresses the needs of higher education institutions relative to the Key Skills which will be established across the revised National Curriculum being introduced by the British government in September 2000. (WRM)

The National Numeracy Strategy was introduced in England in 1998 to reform mathematics teaching in all primary schools. The strategy has been widely implemented and this paper investigates some of the changes that are evident after the first five years. Reporting a comparison between studies in 1998 and 2003 of pupils' calculating strategies for…

This article reports data from children aged about 5 years in their 1st year of schooling. Scores on tests of both literacy and numeracy at the start and end of the year were used to derive value-added measures of progress using both residual gain analysis and multilevel (ML) modelling. Results indicated that the school was more effective in…

This paper is based on a research project that explored a UK Government initiative to improve the quality of teaching adults, numeracy, literacy and English as a second other language. The findings will be of interest to teacher educators generally and also to those involved in teaching adults, language, literacy and numeracy. The paper reports on…

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and the Further Education National Training Organisation (FENTO) developed new subject specifications for teachers of adult literacy and numeracy (DfES and FENTO, 2002). These were designed "to ensure that ... all new teachers of adult literacy and numeracy are equipped with the appropriate and…

There is ongoing debate among educators and in the community about the status of school physical education (PE), particularly in relation to more vocationally-oriented learning areas. Against a backdrop of rising youth obesity, diminishing curriculum time for PE represents a serious public health issue. This study investigated the relationships…

Integrating mathematics with family and consumer sciences (FCS) has enabled youth to pass the Minnesota 8th Grade Math Basic Skills test. The test focuses on the eight content areas: (1) problem solving with whole numbers and fractions; (2) problem solving with percentage/ratio; (3) number sense; (4) estimation; 5) measurement; (6) tables and…

This paper is based on a long-term didactic engineering about division problems (only in a numerical setting) at primary school. Situations and students' work are analyzed by means of a double theoretical framework: the theory of situations and the theory of conceptual fields (Vergnaud 1991). The analysis focuses mainly on classroom interactions…

There may be forces at work that recently have created barriers and restrictions within primary education. Indeed it could be argued that those forces have reduced the children's education to a more rigid and limiting primary schooling. This article explores the influence of target setting and testing, literacy and numeracy hours, American and…

If numeracy is about improving students' use of mathematics in life, then numeracy education cannot be restricted to the mathematics classroom: students need to apply the mathematics they learn across the curriculum and beyond the classroom. Hence, there is more that educators need to discover about how well students can use mathematics in…

This paper provides an overview of the Home-School Knowledge Exchange Project and an introduction to this special issue on home-school knowledge exchange. The paper starts by situating the project within a number of contexts--those of UK educational research, national and international interest in home-school relationships, national and local…

A longitudinal study was conducted on 82 children to investigate, firstly the numerical competence of young children and the predictive value of (pre)-numerical tests in kindergarten, and, secondly, whether children's knowledge of the numerical system and representation of the number size is related to their computation and logical knowledge and…

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is leading a national strategy to improve the United Kingdom's financial capability (FSA, 2006). The strategy recognises that there is a need for Financial Literacy education across all areas of society, from children in school to mature adults in all walks of life. In order to meet this need and to be…