ABSTRACT
Mathematics has been described as the queen of subjects, whilst also being the servant to others, which is one reason why we refer to the cross-curricular approach to teaching at various times in this book. This is of course far from new, but unfortunately it appears not to be in fashion at the moment. Nevertheless, it is advocated in the National Curriculum, and various opportunities to use this approach are even highlighted. But it does not appear in the programmes written for the National Numeracy Strategy. This is one of those contradictions that we have mentioned before. However, if you read the background information to the Numeracy Strategy, you find that it stresses the need to look for opportunities to draw mathematical experiences from a wide range of activities. If this means that teachers need to look for cross-curricular activities, then it would surely be a help if the programmes indicated where these can be found. The National Curriculum does do this, and so might the new ‘Primary School Curriculum’, which at the time of writing is in the first stages of development.
