ABSTRACT
Ten years ago I was asked to write a ‘comment’ piece for Micromath, the journal of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, which focuses on the use of technology to support the teaching and learning of mathematics. As I was writing the article David Blunkett, the
then minister for education, had made a statement that suggested children should not be ‘encouraged’ to use calculators until they were 8 years old. More recently it was seen as important that children in foundation stage had calculators available to support their role play areas, especially if these are shops or cafés and such like.
