Why Roman numerals should stay in the primary curriculum
Why does anyone want to get rid of something so useful?
In debates about the primary curriculum, the teaching of Roman numerals seems to be a prime target for removal. This is confirmed by Becky Allen who co-founded Teacher Tapp, an organisation that surveys teachers. She claimed that the curriculum content involving Roman numerals is:
…the topic primary teachers say they would most like to see jettisoned from the national curriculum.1
I'm afraid I have to disagree with those primary teachers.
Why I like the fact that my pupils understand Roman numerals
Any critic of the teaching of Roman numerals will tell you that despite the effort involved in teaching the topic, it does not appear in the maths curriculum after Key Stage 2.2 Therefore, as someone who teaches maths to classes in Key Stages 3, 4 and 53, there’s no curriculum-based reason why my pupils need to understand Roman numerals. However, my reason is not based on the curriculum, it’s based on questions like this:
I know that the numbering of questions like this can be interpreted by counting the parts of the question. However, over the years I have been asked many times about “question eye vee” when using a maths resource that uses Roman numerals to number parts of the question. I’ve even heard this from sixth-formers doing A-level maths.
It’s great that this hasn’t been an issue in recent years. It may seem like a small thing, but if it makes multipart maths questions that little bit less intimidating, and makes communication about questions easier, I’m all for it.
Are Roman numerals used in other subjects?
I’m sure it’s not just maths that uses Roman numerals to number questions. However, unlike secondary maths, some other subjects also refer to Roman numerals in their teaching content.
Some examples of where Roman numerals appear:
Oxidation states in chemistry;
The names of monarchs (e.g. Henry VIII) and popes in history;
Chords in music;
Act and scene numbers in plays in English (and occasionally page numbers and chapter headings too).
Not many topics in maths are needed so directly in other subjects.
Using Roman numerals outside school
However, it’s not just about the secondary curriculum. We regularly encounter Roman numerals in everyday life. Here are a few examples:
clocks;4
page numbers and chapter headings;
subsections of legal documents (including Acts of Parliament);
subsections of other types of writing (including essays);
the names of movie and computer game sequels;
years on buildings, monuments, films, and TV programmes.
It’s strange that something that we see so frequently in everyday life, and across the subjects in schools, has been singled out as unnecessary or useless. I can’t view this from the perspective of a primary teacher. However, I suspect most teachers of subjects in secondary schools can identify compulsory curriculum content that is far less useful than Roman numerals.5 I’m amazed this is even a debate.
If not in primary, then when?
If Roman numerals were to be removed from the primary curriculum, then it is not clear when else they could be taught. Year 76 would be the obvious time to teach Roman numerals if they were not taught in primary. However, there is no obvious policy mechanism to make this happen. A new addition to the secondary maths curriculum is likely to be left until Key Stage 4, long after pupils have encountered Roman numerals in other subjects.7 I suspect that the most likely outcome is that Roman numerals would not be taught at all if they were removed from the primary curriculum, except in an ad hoc and inefficient way when needed.
A final question
So far, I have focused on the academic and practical uses of Roman numerals. However, I don’t think this is always the best way to think about the curriculum. Sometimes it is better to ask: “Is this something a well-educated person would know?”. What impression would you get from a film critic who talked about the movie “Superman eye-vee”? Would we expect teachers working in schools named after Protestant monarchs (such as Henry VIII or Edward VI) to be unable to pronounce their school’s name? Would we expect sports fans to have no idea how many players are in their team’s First XI? So, my final question to those who want to remove Roman numerals from the curriculum is this: would you want your own child to leave school not knowing how to read Roman numerals?
Labour must take a less-is-more attitude to the national curriculum in Schools Week.
Here is an explanation of Key Stages in England’s schools (copied and pasted from Google’s AI).
The key stages in England's school curriculum are:
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS): For children aged 3–5, this stage corresponds to the Reception year
Key Stage 1 (KS1): For children aged 5–7, this stage includes Years 1 and 2
Key Stage 2 (KS2): For children aged 7–11, this stage includes Years 3–6
Key Stage 3 (KS3): For children aged 11–14, this stage includes Years 7–9
Key Stage 4 (KS4): For children aged 14–16, this stage includes Years 10 and 11
To be accurate, I am not teaching any Key Stage 4 classes this year. However, I am trained to teach these Key Stages and have taught Key Stage 4 many times in the past.
Please do not tell me that our pupils are so good with analogue clocks that they do not need to look at the numbers. In my experience, this is not something the majority of children have mastered. In fact, as a lifelong wearer of digital watches, I read the numbers when looking at analogue clocks.
How often do you use a compass in real life? And how frequently do you use one to bisect an angle?
The first year of secondary school in England. Year 7 pupils are 11 or 12 years old.
This is based on experience of the most recent reforms of maths GCSEs which added some topics. Even really simple topics such as truncation of decimals have, in my experience, often ended up being taught in Key Stage 4, rather than Key Stage 3, simply because they are new.