Poor maths grades do not add up for West Berkshire Council

Describing recent GCSE results of those achieving five or more A* to C grades including English and maths as “relatively flat” a report before the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Management Commission last Tuesday highlighted a problem area for the district compounded by a lack of specialist teachers.
Although some schools had made significant strides in maths, two larger schools had slipped back, which had brought the average down across the board.
A lack of intervention for failing students, problems in leadership and management, the quality of teaching, and a significant number of students predicted to get C grades attaining D grades were all counted as factors contributing towards the poor performance.
The council said the removal of a Government grant resulted in the loss of a full-time mathematics consultant in December 2010, which had a detrimental impact on the council’s ability to monitor performance and provide training for maths teachers.
The subject is seen as difficult to recruit to with a paucity of training programmes.
The council’s head of education, Ian Pearson, said “Most people will take the view that the results could and should have been better, and we are trying to get to the bottom of that.
“Heads have got the message at all levels. We also need to look at is what is happening in primary schools, this is another area in which we need to work with schools and support them is with specialist maths teachers. There are not enough maths teachers to go around.”
He said that when boiled down simply the slump was mainly down to an unusually high number of students expected to gain a C scoring a grade D and that while the results in 2011 were disappointing he hoped that the measures that were being put in place now would bear out in the 2012 figures.