Sold a Sum

Right.
Let’s just say the quiet bit out loud.

We’ve made a mess of maths.

Not by accident.
Not because teachers don’t care.
But because we’ve been sold a story.

It goes something like this:
As long as children can explain their thinking, they understand. As long as they’ve got a strategy, they’re doing fine. As long as they’re busy, engaged, and drawing wee boxes and circles, the learning is happening.

Aye.
It looks good.
It feels good.
It ticks every box on the observation form.

But here’s the truth:

Most of them still can’t multiply.
They still count on their fingers.
They still panic when the numbers change even slightly.

And we’ve convinced ourselves that’s okay.

That’s the scandal.

Because in Scotland — under Curriculum for Excellence — we didn’t lower expectations. We blurred them.

We stopped saying what children should know and started saying how they should feel about learning.

We replaced knowledge with “experiences.”
Fluency with “strategies.”
Accuracy with “that’s an interesting way of thinking.”

And the bar?
It didn’t move.
It quietly disappeared.

Now, don’t get me wrong... CfE had good intentions.
Creativity.
Problem solving.
Understanding.
All brilliant.

But somewhere along the way, we decided that facts didn’t matter as much as feelings.
That automatic recall was old-fashioned.
That practice was boring. That if a child couldn’t calculate, they could just explain instead.

That is not understanding.
That is coping.

And here’s the bit nobody likes hearing:

Children can’t reason with numbers they don’t know.

You can’t “think deeply” when your brain is overloaded just trying to remember six times seven.
There’s no magic strategy that replaces fluency.
There’s no diagram that can carry the whole load forever.

Fluency isn’t speed.
It’s freedom.

It’s what lets children stop surviving maths and start using it.

And right now, we’ve got a system that’s very good at producing kids who can talk about maths…
but can’t actually do it.

So this is Sold a Sum.

Not to bash teachers.
Not to drag schools.
But to ask one honest question:

What if we’ve been doing this the hard way — and calling it good pedagogy?

Because our bairns deserve better than “okay.”
They deserve to feel solid.
Capable.
Confident with number.

We don’t need another initiative.
We don’t need another framework.

We need the courage to say:
this isn’t working the way we hoped.

Sold a Sum is not a brand.
It’s a line in the sand.

If you’re ready to draw that line with us —
welcome.