Maths in Education or When does 6 = 13?

Just back from a meeting of the Education Committee of the Haileybury Council. Educationalists from other places and working in both a Haileybury and a wider context illustrate perfectly the point I made a day or two ago about the decline of slang and local names for things. We can't just use the Haileybury terminology if we wish to be understood and to be able to use information from the wider world of education.

As many will know school years are now counted from one to twelve. The first year with a number is the first year of compulsory education, so Nursery (the year children are 3) and Reception (when they turn 4) are followed by Year 1, Year 2 and so on.

For Haileybury this means that in the Education Committee we have to be able to count, and we do maths in a very special way. In the rest of the world Removes are Year 9. This means that the Fifth is in fact 11 and that Six therefore equals 13.

QED