10 Ways That Maths Helps To Build Important Life Skills

As a maths teacher you will often hear pupils say: ‘What’s the point of learning this bit of maths, I’ll never use it again!’

Maths as a Life Skill

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One powerful response is that maths builds important life skills. Studying maths makes us more confident with numbers and able to make good decisions as an adult.

We can often use a calculator or the internet to help us with our maths once we’ve left school, but do we know what calculation to use in the first place?

Are we happy to solve problems with numbers, or would we feel confident managing a budget at work?

Here Are 10 Important Life Skills Which Maths Gives Us:

1. Getting The Best Deal

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Consumers need to shop around for a large number of different services and purchases, and it is in the interest of many companies to make this less than simple. The difference between getting good and poor deals can cost us thousands of pounds.

Maths skills help us choose the best options in a large number of different areas:

Mortgages
Car Insurance
Car Purchase/Lease
Phone Contracts
House and Contents Insurance
Energy

2. Managing Your Money And Budgeting

How can we make the most of the money we have? How can we save to buy a car, house or holiday?

Is there enough set aside for unexpected purchases like a broken-down washing machine? What can we do if we are spending more than we earn, or costs are rising faster than our income?

Being able to manage money effectively is an important life skill which everybody needs.

3. Understanding Debt And Interest

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What is the potential impact of signing up for a credit card? If we use Buy Now Pay Later, then what will happen if we miss a payment? An understanding of Compound Interest will help us assess potential risks and to make the best decisions.

Further help or advice on this topic is available from Citizens Advice.

4. Holiday Planning

Telling the time, budgeting, working out a schedule, foreign exchange rates. Having maths skills in these areas can contribute to organising a brilliant holiday!

5. Cooking

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Maths is everywhere in the kitchen – from planning a meal and buying the right quantities, to measuring out ingredients and scaling up recipes. Cooking healthy meals from scratch is an important life skill and maths gives us more confidence in the kitchen.

6. Understanding The News

Take a look at the news and you will see numbers everywhere you look. Graphs, charts, probabilities, averages, percentage change – the use of maths is vital to how we understand what’s going on in the world. Interpreting all this information and data really matters - for example can we spot the manipulation of statistics and misleading graphs?

Weeding out misinformation is particularly important, given that in the UK 41% of 18-24-year olds now use Social Media as their main source of news. (reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2023)