Chapter 7 focuses on the Sense of Competence. This is, a key theme in our study of a group of children who have been categorised systemically as lacking in competence in relation to two prioritised subjects: mathematics and English. In this chapter, we look first at the historical background to the focus on such narrow areas of competence in the primary-school curriculum and then on the wider influences leading to this curriculum narrowing. We review literature indicating how demotivating the two ‘core’ subjects may be to some children. We then provide verbatim quotations from our sample of 23 children to illustrate which factors particularly eroded their Sense of Competence in these two areas—which all the children had found tricky—and we compare these experiences to other areas of learning that the children were intentionally engaged with, such as nature study, art, computers and sport. We portray some troubling descriptions by the children of the anxiety, distress and fear that accompanied many of their experiences of mathematics and English at school. We conclude by pointing out how policy documents emphasising grades in mathematics and English often fail to take account of the children’s needs for wellbeing to accompany their school-work, which is only likely to be experienced when competence, autonomy and relatedness are all promoted on an ongoing basis.