THE DEPARTMENT of Education may be kicking the wrong ball when it comes to its new maths curriculum Project Maths. It is not meeting its objectives in at least one school, according to an analysis by a student from Hartstown Community School in Dublin.
“My research is about changes in the syllabus and in teaching methods related to Project Maths,” said Aisling Lawson (15), a transition-year student. “The standard of maths in Ireland has dropped seriously in recent years.”
She wanted to assess if Project Maths was having any impact. She compared maths results from the Junior Cert and from Christmas exams and apparently it provided no sign of improvements.
She acknowledged the data could not provide “a definite yes or no”, but of the five positive outcomes expected of Project Maths only one was being delivered.
“Project Maths has the right intentions but at the moment in my school it is not working.”
Maths was also on the minds of Katie Fleming (12) and Maria Carr (13), two first-year students from Donabate Community College. They wanted to see whether students did better at maths if beforehand they had physical education (PE).
They put classmates through light exercise regimes for 10 minutes just before maths class, then measured mathematical performance both with and without the exercise. “We found out it did have a beneficial effect,” Katie said.
Students already getting high marks in maths saw a 23 per cent improvement in performance while those in the middle ground showed a 10 per cent gain. Oddly, students underachieving actually saw a decline in maths performance. “That had never been found out before,” Maria said.
Teachers were also happier with students doing maths post-exercise. About 40 per cent of teachers in their survey thought student behaviour was improved and 80 per cent said students concentrated better and were more receptive in class.
