Jamie Oliver opens up about his relationship with maths
Speaking to Davina McCall on her Begin Again podcast, Jamie – who found fame in 1999 with his ‘Naked Chef’ TV series – said:
"Sometimes I failed and I got all the hard bits right and I got the basics wrong because I spent a lifetime refusing to accept any responsibility around numbers and maths, which goes back to school, it’s my issue, not the school’s issue. I was in the worst group for maths, I didn’t pass maths at school."
"Conceptually within that, yeah I’m thick. I have a negative view of myself when it comes to maths. When I lost my restaurants, all the hard stuff we got right, all the stuff most people struggle getting right, we got right – we were really good at the hard stuff, it was really the basics [we got wrong]."
It’s never too late to improve your everyday number skills and confidence
At National Numeracy, we know that building confidence is the dominant factor linked to improving numeracy skills. Fortunately, despite his lack of confidence in the past, Jamie says he now knows it’s not too late to improve his relationship with numbers.
"I recognise it now – through my inability to exorcise the demons of, 'Actually, maybe you’re not s*** at that, and actually you can retrain that.'"
We applaud Jamie for being so open and honest about his numeracy journey, especially as we know there are many others who also struggle with numbers.
Why not start your numeracy improvement journey today?
Number Confidence Week 3-7 November, will have lots of fun, free resources and activities for adults and children to help them take the first step towards improving their everyday maths.
This year’s theme is Money Matters and there will be a particular focus on improving numeracy for managing money.
The National Numeracy Challenge meanwhile, is a free online tool that helps improve confidence with numbers by using questions about the maths you use in daily life and at work.
