ABSTRACT
The chapter describes the international comparisons in mathematics achievement, teacher's beliefs and values, and the implications of the introduction of the National Numeracy Strategy. International and national comparisons of mathematical performance surmised that there was probably an improvement in arithmetic performance in the 10 to 15 years following the end of the Second World War, and that performance began to fall after that and continued to do so into the 1990s. From the international surveys for 1991 to 1995, teachers reported that they considered that they gave high emphasis to number operations, but this was in conflict with the results from the surveys which showed England performing at a below average level for Number and above average in Handling Data and Geometry. One traditional teaching approach, prior to the introduction of the National Curriculum, was that of topic work, and school's planning would centre around a theme and include elements of many subject disciplines, including mathematics.
