With the aim of improving the public’s ability to use and understand statistics and data, we have published our key recommendations for the UK’s statistics curriculum.
Maths education across the UK currently leaves many students without the skills needed to navigate the increasingly important statistics and data landscape, as well as missing the opportunity to equip students with many of the skills needed for a wide range of careers. Following on from our response to the previous government’s 2023 ‘Maths to 18’ proposals, we reiterate the need to address the underlying problems with the current statistics curriculums, including a lack of engagement and enjoyment and not enough emphasis on real-world applications.
To address these issues, we recommend:
- A stronger emphasis on relevant, real-world contexts
- A greater focus on statistical literacy and the investigative cycle, using more IT and visualisation software
- A greater emphasis on interdisciplinarity and joining up the statistics taught across different subjects
- The use of more engaging real-world topics within assessments, with more opportunities for the production of statistical reports to form a part of assessment (especially at age 14 and above)
- In the UK nations that use the GCSE system, separating out statistics from mathematics as a defined discipline, either with better defined modules, a separate, compulsory GCSE in statistics or by giving students the option to take either a combined GCSE or two GCSEs (similar to the triple science GCSE option)
- A greater focus on quantitative reasoning, the investigative cycle and statistical literacy skills in the A-level curriculum.
Read the recommendations in full, or the summary.