What is the reason?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail....ggle-basic-maths.html

What is the reason for the poor education skills at such an early age, it would seem there is not much wrong with our education system since we get more and more GCSE passes amongst our older pupils?

Could it be that a large percentage of these younger pupils come from homes whose first language is not English?

[sp1814]

Probably more to do with the fact that children with learning difficulties are no longer streamed into 'special schools'.

Children with English as a second language soon catch up, as evidenced by the large number of Asian students going into higher education.

[Gromit]

Why would being from an ethnic minority household make a 5 year old poor at maths? Surely maths is the same no matter what language it is taught in.

Speaking of bad at maths, if a fifth of all 5 year olds came from non English speaking parents, your guess might work, but that figure is no where near 20%.

Could it be that parents have to work long hours to make ends meet, and resort to plinking their kids in front of the Telly, instead of reading them a book?

[Gromit]

Plonking not plinking (damn iPod text correction).

[boxtops]

" nearly one.... is" would be correct, steve.

[THECORBYLOON]

Under the photo in the article it says "Struggling: More than 100,000 seven-year-olds is (sic) unable to write properly"

[mike11111]

Boxtops is right

One out of five IS unable
Four out of five ARE able

[jake-the-peg]

Most of the exceptional maths kids I know of are exactly coming from homes where the first language is not English AOG

Having said that, excluding the far East our kids are Europe's top mathematicians

http://www.timesonlin...on/article5314718.ece

We must have been doing something right these last few years.

Still never mind Michael Gove is on the case now

[fredpuli47]

Doubtful that ethnicity has anything to do with it. Children that young learn English very quickly, as they are immersed in the language outside the home.They can't avoid it . My daughter,for example, was at international primary school in London. Her classmates were all non-native speakers.By the time they were six ,all were fluent in English.That the home language was not English didn't affect them; they simply became bilingual. Some of them were trilingual by then because they had parents who spoke different languages, such as one who had a Danish mother and a French father. Her mother spoke French to her father but Danish to her! .

[LeMarchand]

I work in Primary Education (not as a teacher). I would suspect a combination of sp1814's theory, coupled with constantly changing educational ideas (do kids that young really need to know what a phoneme or a digraph is?) and the fact that the teachers have their hands tied over how to control the more unruly members of their class.