Department for Education
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Government bans calculators in tests for 11-year-olds
Education and Childcare Minister Elizabeth Truss recently announced that calculators would be banned in maths tests for 11-year-olds from 2014.
She warned that pupils were using calculators too much too soon at primary school – the current curriculum suggests introducing them at seven. The draft primary Programme of Study published last June was clear that calculators should not be introduced until late primary to, for instance, convert a simple fraction to a decimal fraction (3/8 = 0.375).
Ten-year-olds in England are among the highest users of calculators in the world – 98 per cent are allowed to use them in maths lessons, according to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 2007. This compares to the international average of 46 per cent of 10-year-olds allowed to use them in classes.
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