I don't know about you, but I find there are certain things in life that constantly seem to elude me; certain skills I can never pick up, however old or seemingly successful I become. For instance, reverse parking; I only ever managed to do this once without driving off red-faced after six attempts, and that was (thankfully!) during my driving test.

Pool is another; I would give my right arm to pot anything that wasn't a straight shot and impress the kids, especially if the white ball didn't trickle in after it! And distances. I haven't a clue how far it is from my home to work, nor do I have any conception of how far ten miles might be. I can't 'do sums' in my head either. Well, that's not strictly true;

I can if the total of the units doesn't exceed ten, but if I had to add numbers that ended with eight and nine, for instance, I would have to write it down. Thank God for calculators, else I dread to think how I would handle bill payments and bank statements too!

Now I would hate you to think I was stupid, of course, I'm not! I have two Maths 'O' levels and a string of other qualifications that would make your hair curl! But nevertheless, I have puzzled long and hard over these problems and have decided that my maths education is to blame. Yes, I can read and memorize formula till they are coming out of my ears (in fact, that's probably how I managed my two grade B 'O' levels!), but I can also read recipes, and know that that does NOT make me a good cook!

The point is that I feel let down by never being shown the relevance of what I was doing; never once (obviously!) was my learning made relevant to my every day life, nor was I allowed the luxury of exploration to discover a way of working that might have been meaningful for me. I did sums, probably very well, but would have had my knuckles rapped for straying from the taught method. In my day, it was more excusable to get the wrong answer with the right formula than to use a different method and get the correct answer.

Finally, after goodness knows how many years, children are taught Mathematical skills for life. At each step of the way, Mathematical concepts are taught alongside the skills needed to make them accessible to all children as a useful part of their everyday existence.

Each area of learning, for example Number, Shape and Space or Measure, is broken down in to a series of progressive steps, which run from Reception to Year Six (and interestingly, as this has been so successful, soon to cover the first few years at High School too). Children are taught the concepts at each stage alongside the skills they need to be able to understand and make use of their new learning in real and relevant ways. The only problem? I'm completely jealous that my own children are better able to estimate a distance, do mental calculations or judge angles than I am!

Any of you jealous on the same thing? :)