Maths teaching days vary by 18 days a year, study finds

SOME children get 18 fewer days of maths teaching a year than others because of huge variations between and within primary schools.

An ESRI study of 8,500 nine-year-olds at 850 primary schools revealed what researcher Selina McCoy said was a surprising difference in the time spent on different subjects.

The variations were not just between schools, but also within schools as the gender, experience and characteristics of teachers and the type of school a child attends also influence what areas of the curriculum they focus on. Forexample, it emerged that:

* Female teachers give more time to drama, art and religion classes.

* Men spend more time teaching core subjects (English, maths and Irish) and physical education.

* Older teachers also tend to focus more on the core curriculum.

* All-boys’ schools spend more time on history, geography and PE, but all-girls’ schools spend more time on religion and art.

The 1999 curriculum for primary schools suggests minimum times be spent on each area per week, with four hours recommended for English (or on Irish in all-Irish schools), 3.5 hours on the second language and three hours on maths. A combined three hours is suggested for history, geography and science, the same for visual arts, music and drama, with an hour a week of physical education and half an hour of social, personal and health education recommended per week.

While nine-year-olds received on average about the suggested time of English and Irish, significantly more time (3.7 hours) was spent weekly on maths.

However, 40% of children were getting fewer than three hours of maths teaching a week and more than 25% of children were taught the subject for five hours or more. Over a primary school year of 183 days, this adds up to more than 18 full days of teaching in maths.

“There is a trade-off where teachers are spending more time on maths, as the pupils are getting less time on geography, history and science. We’d be conscious that the children should get the opportunity to experience the full range of subjects in the curriculum.”

As schools are being asked to emphasise literacy and numeracy, with Education Minister Ruairi Quinn telling them to devote 90 minutes a day to literacy, Ms McCoy said there was a danger of children losing out in other areas.

She said while guidelines on time allocated to subjects are not prescriptive, they might need to be re-examined. But it was important that schools and teachers be allowed flexibility to reflect their mix of pupils, she said.