In this paper, 360 mental maps drawn by 120 Jamaican students are examined with regard to the influence of age and gender on the development of skills of spatial representation The spatial representations produced as mental maps give an indication of spatial conception, although the two are not synonymous. The patterns to emerge from the research were complex, with evidence both for a steady accretion of spatial information and for developmental stages. There were also no simplistic or unidirectional gender effects. There was evidence, however, that the instructional set and the scale of the exercise affected the representations produced.