ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the multitude of educational policy documents from the last 20 years in England, and specifically asks, what kind of mathematical child is produced. In 1997, when Tony Blair's New Labour government came to power, education was positioned as one of its highest priorities. New Labour's government was very much part of the neoliberal agenda and the marketisation of education. These policies and practices were arguably supported by their Conservative predecessors who paved the way with similar rhetoric. The chapter argues that New Labour overriding production of the mathematics child is concerned with functionality. In contrast the mathematical child of Conservative regime is more overtly focused on the fundamentals of mathematics, as the government borrows from the Far East. However, this Conservative child is only enabled by the functionalism of New Labour, where the standardisation of the measurement of the child was embedded in government metrics.
