This is a true story, but the names of the school and the personalities involved have been changed to avoid the Metric Police referring the school to an OFSTED inspector.

Beechwood Primary School is a good Essex primary school.

It's become even better since Peter persuaded the headmaster to re-introduce the teaching of British weights and measures. This was done with the aid of a set of Imperial weighing scales provided free to the school by Peter. The justification for the re-introduction of British weights and measures into the curriculum is that this is part of the children's culture, heritage and tradition. They now weigh out ingredients for cakes etc. in pounds and ounces, though they are also taught the metric equivalents - and they measure their heights and weights in feet/inches and stone/lbs.

Further progress was made a few weeks ago with the inauguration of the 'Runner Bean Race'. Each child in the class is encouraged to plant a runner bean and then record its growth each week. This is done in feet and inches, using an Imperial tape measure. There are indications along the fence to show how high the runner beans are (at one-foot intervals). The children are reminded of the metric equivalent but record the growth of their runner bean in feet and inches. There is a prize for the highest runner bean at the end of term.

Today (15 June) Peter had a stall at the annual school fete. He was given, free, a hundredweight of organic rhubarb which he sold at 50p. a lb., apparently well below half the price organic rhubarb currently fetches in retail shops. He was left with only 1lb. 12 oz. at the end of the day. He distributed a number of BWMA leaflets to interested visitors. There was only one sour voice - that of Mrs Whinge, whose daughter Elizabeth is in the same class as Peter's daughter. She felt the Imperial 'runner bean race' was a retrograde step. Well, she is German - married to an English husband.

Highlight of the day for Peter was an unscheduled visit to the fete by the area's M.P. - Conservative Eric Pickles. He took great interest in the rhubarb stall, and told Peter that in two weeks' time he was meeting 'Metric Martyr' Neil Herron to discuss Conservative Party policy on metrication with him. It is understood that the Conservatives may well commit themselves to abandoning compulsory metrication.

Anyway, a reporter and photographer for the Brentwood Gazette spent some considerable time at the stall recording the conversation and taking pictures; apparently Eric Pickles described the current compulsory metrication regulations as 'a load of rhubarb'

Tony wrote: "It is understood that the Conservatives may well commit themselves to abandoning compulsory metrication."

That would mean leaving the EU, and that's very, very unlikely...

Not necessarily.

BWMA: "Not necessarily."

Please explain...

I have often advocated that a sensible class project for eight to ten years olds would be to record the minimum and maximum temperatures every day. Readings would of course be in Celsius.

Not only would this introduce the children to teh concepts of temperature, but if done over the winter terms, should also introduced then to the concpet of negative numbers and why -3 is less than -2.

[This is a true story, but the names of the school and the personalities involved have been changed to avoid the Metric Police referring the school to an OFSTED inspector.]

No need. OFSTED will see it for themselves at the next routine inspection.

Will this inspection involve the understanding that imperial measures *are* taught at school anyway and have been since the early 90's?

Just thought I'd better ask!

Nice bit of 'populist' policy there, of course it is completely out of the question assuming of course that the Conservatives do not oppose EU membership.

<<
I have often advocated that a sensible class project for eight to ten years olds would be to record the minimum and maximum temperatures every day.
>>


How would you do that? Sit and watch the thermometer all day?

BTW What does OFSTED stand for?

OFSTED = "Office for Standards in Education". It is the official government school inspections unit.

They all start "OF" - like "OFTEL", "OFGAS" etc etc

{Will this inspection involve the understanding that imperial measures *are* taught at school anyway and have been since the early 90's?}

OFSTED are fully aware of the National Curriculum. They will need to satisfy themselves that, among other things, the requirements of the NC are being met.

The NC does not require that pupils learn to weigh and measure in pounds and ounces.

but zey are permitted too if zey vish

It depends if they have the time and space for it given the core commitments.

OFSTED may see the exercise of measuring cooking ingredients in ounces as a lost opportity to apply knowledge gained in mathematics, where the primary system is metric, to a practical everyday situation.

OFSTED do look at cross-curricular issues as well as individual subjects.

They might also regard it as inappropriate given that the ingredients tend to be bought in metric quantities from the shops.

"OFSTED may see the exercise of measuring cooking ingredients in ounces as a lost opportity to apply knowledge gained in mathematics, where the primary system is metric, to a practical everyday situation."

OFSTED would know that the teaching of "common imperial units in use today" happens in the maths classroom.


"They might also regard it as inappropriate given that the ingredients tend to be bought in metric quantities from the shops"

They probably got this information in France, but a quick read of the Tesco survey to how customers ask for loose produce should correct this misinformation!

You'd better be careful or that splinter group "The Real OFSTED" will get involved!

At key stage 2, the NC for mathematics states that pupils should:

"know the rough metric equivalents of imperial units still in daily use"

Key stage 3 is more specific:

"know rough metric equivalents of pounds, feet, miles, pints and gallons;"

No SAT questions will test anything beyond this.

Re the point about shopping for ingredients:

All pre-packed foods are now marked with net weight in grams in UK not just in France. Not everyone shops a Tesco.

Although

1) They command the biggest market share in the UK
2) There packed stuff shows imperial, not just the loose stuff.

Someone from the R-OFSTED wanted me to remind you (again) that the curriculum asks for children to be comfortable and conversant in imperial.
They also wanted me to remind you that tests should included conversion from one unit to another, regardless of direction, and this should include accuracy.

Then you'll understand why school leavers are 100% ok with speed limits in their vauxhall nova's and also they they converse in terms of feet rather than metres, especially when applying to peoples' heights.

To get an idea of the testing try the BBC web site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks3bitesize/maths/measures

In particular look at "Use of measures 2"

The revise section show these as being the equivalents that are used:

1 inch is about 2.5cm
1 foot is about 30cm
1kg is about 2.2 pounds
1 gallon is about 4.5 litres
1 litre is about 1.75 pints
8km is about 5 miles
(1km is about 5/8 mile, and 1 mile is about 8/5km)

That is the level of accuracy.

Graphical methods are also introduced as an alternative means of conversion which again is only approximate.

Click on the Test button to see some example questions. In particular note Q3 about a persons weight. They are given that 14lb = 1 stone as part of the question. They are not required to know it.

The BBC revision web site is a popular and respected teaching resource for schools. The assessment questions are typical of those in SAT's (Statement of Attainment Tests) for keystage 3 at year 9.

The aim of all this is to teach them to convert from but not to actually use Imperial units. They do it in both directions to consolidate the mathematical principles.

British education is still primarily metric.

Point accepted OFSTED spokesperson. Just as matter of interest, are you really and OFSTED spokesperson or are you just putting it on? I'm not bothered either way but i'm just curious.

Any adult who has had a close connection with UK education (teachers, school governors, parents etc) in the last ten years knows all about OFSTED. Schools have OFSTED inspections every four years or so and they spend months gettign ready for the inspections. Those who are aware of what an ISO 9000 inspection entails will also know what an OFSTED inspection entails - the two are similar in the way in which they insepct everything.

It is a simple matter to get the curriculum and quote it (in the same way that I quote the EU directive 80/181/EEC all the time).

OFSTED first came into being in about 1992 (when I was a governor at my children's infant school). (I recall that when I ran my spell checker over a document that I had written for a governor's meeting, the word "OFSTED" was not found, but the word "OFFSIDE" was suggested)

That poster is clearly not from OFSTED. Why?

He posts a weblink to the BBC and not an official Curriculum.

I can do that, look:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/maths/shape/measuresrev3.shtml

Note the accuracy of the conversions:

1km = 5/8 mile
1m = 39.37 inches
1 foot = 30.5cm
1 inch = 2.54cm
1kg = 2.2lb
1gallon = 4.5 litres
1 litre = 1 3/4 pints

Note this question:
"The length of a piece of paper is given as 38.1cm. What is the length of the paper in inches?"

Can we see what we are converting *too*?

The curriculum is more keen on imperial than it's ever been with questions commony using "miles" as a default for certain questions.

This contrasts with when I was at school (80's) when there was no provision for learning imperial. Someone obviously realised what a ridiculous notion it is to avoid teaching words and functions of those words that were extremely commonly used in day to day British life.

The curriculum is not how the "OFSTED" (im)poster implies.

However, I do take his posts with a degree of humour ;)

(and R-OFSTED will not take any action!)

I refer to the BBC web site because that is about the only on-line source of revision material that properly represents the NC.

There is much besides but none of it reflects the contents and requirement as closely as the above.

The example referred to by SteveH is GCSE rather than KS3 so its bound to be more advanced and suitable for more able students.

However I challenge SteveH to produce any representative examples of test questions that do not involve metric units on either side of the equation.

I say again the object is to teach conversion skills not to use Imperial instead of metric. The reason for this is because the selected units are still in common use and schools have a responsibility to prepare students for this.

You are not going to like this one bit.
And you are going to hate the source!

http://www.standards.dfee.gov.uk/midbins/numeracy/year6_unit9.PDF


You are particularly not going to like this question:
"Estimate and check, using metric or imperial units, measurements such as the distance from Leeds to Liverpool"

Please note the meaning of "OR" and how it works differently from "AND".

This answers your challenge 100%

Perhaps you were being a devil's advocate - after all, being from OFSTED means that you would have known that you were wrong just to "test the water"?

Next challenge....

-and lets face it, your next challenge could only be something like "Prove to us that all kids in all schools only get taught imperial and no metric" - because that's when I'll gladly put my hands up

in victory!

BTW: O.T. and for other readers - I picked an interesting viewpoint from the US - enjoy:

http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Metrication/give_them_an_inch.htm

<<
"Estimate and check, using metric or imperial units, measurements such as the distance from Leeds to Liverpool"
>>

The way to estimate the distance is to get a road atlas and add up the distances of each road between the two cities. Most UK atlases show miles for the UK & Ireland and km for the Continent.

The distance is checked using the scale that is attached to the map.

The use of miles in this example is therefore no big deal.

Well excuse me!

I was satisfying a challenge, my multi-country posting friend!

<<
I was satisfying a challenge, my multi-country posting friend!
>>

... and the best that you could find after wading through six pages of examples was one in which the actual units themselves were irrelevant.

google
2 minutes search
open in a new window
"binoculars" - enter imperial in search box.

I didn't want to spend too much time on such a silly thing.

Some people should get used to it and move on - admit that imperial is an important part of education and get on with it.

Some people should admit that metric is here to stay and get on with it.

Metric is here to stay - I'm getting on with it.

Now over to you.....

Well done Steve, put it there mate ...

"Some people should get used to it and move on - admit that imperial is an important part of education and get on with it."

Now admit that you cannot possible even grumble acceptance to the above!

YEs, I believe I'm onto a winner with this one, btw! :)

"Some people should get used to it and move on - admit that imperial is an important part of education and get on with it."

yes, in the current situation children should be taught more about imperial.

Just one more for Steve then:

Some people should admit that imperial is not here to stay and get on with it.

When I was younger, so much younger than today
I always thought that imperial measures will have had their day.
But now those days have gone, and I've learnt so much more.
Now I've found I've changed my mind, imperial's here forever more.

THE IMPERIAL WORLD OF ESSEX PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN

BWMA Member PI had a productive afternoon at Beechwood School today.

Organising the tug-of-war competition, he was soon telling the children to place their hands so many feet away from the centre of the rope - or from the next person. Then he had to organise the teams so that the heaviest were at the end of each team. This involved all the primary school children shouting out their weight, which 100% of them did in stone and pounds.

After the tug-of-war, one boy proudly came up to PI and told him how well his runner bean was doing in the great runner bean competition (see first message on this thread).

"Mister, it's grown three inches this week!"

An official from OFSTED (that wasn't really from OFSTED) commented.....

It's a bit surprising that they all knew their weight never mind the units.

Me-thinks there is a little embroidery going in this tale.

<<
After the tug-of-war, one boy proudly came up to PI and told him how well his runner bean was doing in the great runner bean competition (see first message on this thread).

"Mister, it's grown three inches this week!"
>>

Is that all? At this time of the year one would expect about 50cm per week. (Or the boy got confused with his units).

Hmmmmm....

Meter Man = Ofsted?

Steve sounds a bit haunted by this character. Who is this ofsted bloke anyway?

... I was begining to think it was you!

....but now i think it was martin!