In the evening on Tuesday I attended a talk by Liz Henning of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) to the Lancashire and North West Branch of the IMA at Manchester Metropolitan University. This was an interesting talk on school teaching of mathematics and provoked a fairly lively discussion. More events from the IMA Lancs and NW Branch are available through the branch website.

During the talk I noted down the following quote Liz gave from the Non Statutory Guidance 1989:

“Mathematics provides a way of viewing and making sense of the world…and to tackle a range of practical tasks and real life problems.”