Maths GCSE Mock - Foundation Paper Fail

[TheWalkingDude]

Hello all,

I'm looking for some advice from parents and teachers regarding the new maths foundation paper.

DD is in year 11 and sat her maths mock just after half term. She sat 3 papers and received her result today, which was 1 . She was predicted to get a 5 in the exams next year.

She has come home and told me that nearly everyone failed the maths mock, with the majority scoring a 1 or 2. The highest grade received was a 3. There was even a big discussion at the school assembly today regarding the low scores.

It would appear to be an even bigger issue with the higher paper as a letter has come home explaining that it has now become apparent to the school that the content of the higher paper had "changed dramatically" and that a number of pupils will be better suited to the foundation paper. The letter further adds that the Government advice is that the higher paper is aimed only at those intending to pursue a career in maths or the sciences.

The whole of year 11 will have to resist the mock in Jaunuary.

Now, I am quite concerned about this. Although DD is sitting the foundation paper, scoring 1 is very worrying. DD should be getting the papers back so we can take a look and see what has gone wrong.

Anyone out there know anything about the new maths papers? Does this sound like the school are failing to teach the correct subject matter?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[TeenAndTween]

No advice on new paper.

From a parent with a child with limited natural ability in maths who eventually got a high B, my advice would be to get the paper back and look for trends in where she lost marks and work on that.
e.g.
Mistakes in basic adding, times tables etc
Not reading the question properly
Not being able to read graphs
Dealing with negative numbers
Wordy questions
Wasting time on questions outside her ability rather than time on questions she can do

It is amazing how many marks can be lost to just a few types of errors.

I would also personally get hold of the syllabus and check with DD what she thinks she's actually covered.

I think it must be really hard for this year group as they don't have hundreds of practice papers available to them.

No doubt noblegiraffe will be along shortly full of knowledge and ideas.

[fourcorneredcircle]

I second TaT You need noble, the woman has secondary maths God status :)

[TeenAndTween]

Also, this may sound a bit stupid, but when deciding where to focus effort, also consider what maths is needed for her science papers.

So for DD we found the following very helpful for both maths and science

• graph reading
• re-arranging equations
• units conversion (changing metres to cm etc.) and watching out for units in equations in case you need to convert them

[FifiForgot]

I was having a discussion with the Head of Maths at school today. We have Y11 mocks starting in a couple of weeks and I queried the number of foundation papers copied. He said that the new higher papers are VERY hard and we will be entering far more students for the foundation paper this year.

I get the impression that the higher paper has been ramped up. No one is really sure how the new papers are going to pan out and as PP has said, there aren't huge numbers of practice papers available. In pervious years experienced teachers could take a good guess at what would be on the papers, but it is a whole new ball game this year.

Don't panic too much, the school should provide targeted revision sessions to help students and th advice from PP's is also good!

[DereksGotATail]

I'm place marking for this as we are in the same situation.
Dd2 did an mock exam a few weeks ago and failed. She is in the top set for her year. The teacher has recommended that she drops down a set which may help her understanding of the subject.
I've since found out that she actually scored 11% and the average for her class was 24% which I find disturbing when the real exams are only months away. Dd2 insists that 50% would mean an A/A* equivalent in the new scoring system.
Dd1 looked over the questions from the mock and commented that some of the stuff was A level work
I will be emailing the teacher tonight asking for a meeting so we can address our concerns. We had no indication of any problems in the patents evening at the start of the term.

[TheWalkingDude]

Thank you for all of the replies.

DD should be receiving her papers tomorrow so we will be able to have a look through. DD has said that she does not know which exam board she is studying and the school website has not been updated with the current exam boards. Previously it was Edexcel so I am assuming that they have remained with them, but I'm not 100% sure.

We will definitely print off the syllabus and I have looked at the Edexcel new syllabus and sample papers. DD did say that there was material that they had not covered yet so she could not answer those questions. They were only informed at the end of September that the mocks would take place directly after half term so not a great deal of time to revise.

I just found it worrying that the whole of year 11 have failed and the mocks have to be retaken in January. The letter home also reassures parents that it is possible to achieve a Grade 6 on the Foundation paper, yet everything that I've seen indicated that Grade 5 is the highest.

Interestingly, I have recently found a maths tutor for DD and at our first session she asked DD what she found the most difficult and DD replied "circle theroms". Tutor said that this was not needed for foundation and was for higher tier only, yet DD has sweated embryos (sorry - stolen from In The Thick of It over this topic. I checked the Edexcel spec and sure enough, circle theroms is only for Higher Tier. Obviously I will show the papers to her tutor too.

The good news is that she did pass all of her other mocks though and we are really happy for her. She needs a grade 5 in maths to get into her first choice 6th Form, so she's really keen to pull the stops out.

[TeenAndTween]

Our school always does 2 maths mocks, one with the full set mocks in early January, and a later one in March. This year they have also done an extra sort-of-mock in October to get them used to the new style paper.

I forgot to mention general time management above. Knowing how many minutes each mark equates to and not letting questions over-use their time allocation is important.

e.g. For DD we knew that multi-part wordy questions (like post office, different package weights and costs, how much to send a complicated order, then what if there is a price increase) were not good. She often couldn't see how to do them, they took loads of time, and even if she did she went wrong. So the rule was unless very confident miss them out and only try at the end if time.

[TheWalkingDude]

Teen and Tween

Our DD's sound identical. Maths does not come naturally to DD either and the wordy problems have tripped her up in the past, so will need more practice.

The only reason the school are holding a resit is because a great number of pupils that they had planned to sit the Higher paper have failed - DD said highest grade was a 3. The school will make the final decision on which paper pupils will set after the resit, but like a PP said above, only a few will now sit the higher tier. I'm wondering if the foundation paper has also been ramped up too. I think I did read that it now contains topics that would have only previously been taught at higher tier.

She wants to study Psychology for A level and knows that statistics feature as part of the course. The only requirement is that she gets the grade 5 in maths.

I'm new to all this exam malarkey as DD is an only child. Suppose the good news is that I'll only have to go through it once

[TeenAndTween]

Only doing it once is definitely good news. DD1 is now y13 so did the old system, DD2 is y7 so will be in the new system so I will have to relearn everything!

DD1 was 'lucky' in that I am very confident with maths so I was able to give her 1-1 tuition as and when needed, totally tailored to her needs. I realise that many people don't have the time / inclination / skill for this, but any 1-1 time you can give either yourself or via a tutor will help.

We got there in the end, despite in year 11 her still looking blankly at me at times if I mentioned percentages, or asked her the answer to 2 x -3. Familiarity with the type of question makes a big difference. I think I have read that the new paper is more wordy, so picking out the technique to be used might be an issue for loads of them. In DD's year there was the 'Hannah's Sweets' question which mixed probability and algebra and threw many students (DD just missed it out).

Hopefully noble will turn up when she's done her bedtime stories, marking and lesson prep!

[noblegiraffe]

Crikey, now I feel under pressure! I've done a parents' evening tonight so am not at my most coherent.

Some things are worrying about the letter:

1. Foundation paper only goes up to a 5 not a 6
   
2. If it is only now apparent to the school that the papers have changed dramatically then I wonder if they have been living under a rock. Most schools put a new style GCSE paper in front of the kids for Y10 exams.
   
3. Circle theorems Does your DD definitely mean the angles in circles questions and not area/circumference of a circle?
   
4. There are no grade boundaries for these mock papers. No one knows what will be required to get a 1/2/3/4/5 so how can the school be so certain at assigning grades and failing all their students?
   
5. Higher tier is much harder than it used to be, but I'd hesitate to describe it as only for those wanting careers in maths and science; it's not A-level! However. I know that many schools are now going to be entering way more students for foundation over higher than they used to, and I know that early estimates for grade boundaries for the new papers are on the floor at the lower end (I've seen suggestions of

[GHGN]

The new paper is hard. I teach a top set in a non-super selective grammar and they struggle. I have done a lot of tests already and give them a lecture/read the riot act after every test. They are slowly just about getting the hang of it. In the previous spec, I normally finished at around end of year 10 or end of September of year 11. For the new spec, I just finished this week. Definitely not looking forward to result day this year.

[ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged]

How confident are the school about their grades? Grade boundaries for the new maths and English GCSEs don't exist so we're all making them up tbh. If I were you I'd be asking how they'd come up with the '1'.

How good is your own maths knowledge? Could you download an old spec exam paper and mark scheme (all available on exam board website) and test her using that? If she's getting roughly b/c grades on those she should get 5/6 on new spec iyswim.

[TheWalkingDude]

Thanks to most recent posters who came on to give advice when I was tucked up in bed!

noble

I will try to clarify some of your points.

I have emailed the school regarding the Grade 5/6, but is concerning that they seem unaware, although may be a typo in the letter.

I think this must be first time with new papers as letter states that "it has become apparent" that Higher Tier paper has dramatically changed.

Circle Theorems - these are the ones that there are 7 rules to learn? (I went through them with DD to see what the angst was about). If they are not needed for Foundation, then I wonder what else has been included. Once I know the board for sure I will print off the spec and go through with DD to see what is still to be taught.

Grade Boundaries - This makes sense now. DD said that in yesterday's assembly the Head was banging on explaining that the teachers didn't know how to mark the papers. It made no sense to me at the time, but he was probably referring to not knowing the boundaries.

I feel for DD as she has done so well in all other mocks and is predicted to get A in the subjects she wants to take a A level and B in everything else. The only thing that will stop her from getting into her first choice 6th form is if she fails to get a Grade 5 for maths. Not sure if there would be any flexibility on this if she scored a 4.

I will definitely come back when we've been through the papers to give you all an update and will follow up when she resits in January.

[mudandmayhem01]

I saw the maths predictions for a load of Y11 students, lots of 2s and 3s for students who fit the profile of applying to sixth form. The grade boundaries must be wrong or there is going to be a massive problem in the summer when a school which normally gets 65% of students getting 5 good GCSES ( including maths and English) suddenly drops to 35%. Its making a very stressful situation for students applying for sixth form places.

[Badbadbunny]

The grade boundaries may well be really low just to facilitate enough passes

Exactly. The marks will be normalised (or fiddled) so that say the top 5% get 9, the next 10% get 8, the next 10% get 7 etc, so the actual marks for each grade can swing widely from year to year. If no-one scored more than 90%, then the grade boundaries would be adjusted so that you get a grade 9 with 80 or 85% depending on the actual scores. The grades are adjusted to fit something like a normal distribution graph.

In a recent year, you could achieve a grade C at higher level maths GCSE with around 35%!

[noblegiraffe]

It just seems a huge leap to push so many students from higher to foundation papers based on very little

At my school we haven't swapped previous higher groups to foundation based on very little, but based on the papers put out by the exam boards on which these groups have scored very few marks.

It's all very well saying that the grade boundaries will be low, but no one has any idea how low and gambling on very low grade boundaries for weaker students is risking the very real chance that they could fall off the bottom and get a U.

Also a lot of weak students will totally panic when faced with 4.5 hours of papers that they might only be able to do roughly 15% of and fall apart and get nothing.

[Megainstant]

In a recent year, you could achieve a grade C at higher level maths GCSE with around 35%!

it was 28% a year or so ago

I do not understand it. dd1 got a C but could do a third of the paper. There is nothing more demoralising than sitting in an exam literally not being able to understand the questions.

They used to have an Intermediate paper which sounds like a much better idea - aimed squarely at the Bs and Cs among us

[noblegiraffe]

The OP said a number of higher students were moving to foundation, which would fit with what's going on nationally.

[mudandmayhem01]

Moving between higher and foundation can have a lot consequences for students. Many A levels have particular Maths GCSE grade requirements, as do some university courses. Foundation might be a safer bet for a school but isn't always the right decision for the individual student.

[mudandmayhem01]

Moving between higher and foundation can have a lot consequences for students. Many A levels have particular Maths GCSE grade requirements, as do some university courses. Foundation might be a safer bet for a school but isn't always the right decision for the individual student.

[TheWalkingDude]

Hello all. Thank you very much for all the comments.

The school have acknowledged my email re grade 5/6 and will forward it to the correct person.

The school have said they will use the results of the resit in January to make the final decision on which paper pupils will sit, but advised that a number of pupils will now be better suited to the foundation tier.

DD has now got a few more weeks to revise so will hopefully do better. I would have said that achieving a C on the old foundation paper would have been do-able for DD, but am now concerned that a 5 may be out of reach. Will be interesting to see what her tutor thinks. Also, I checked the school website again today and buried in a different section was the info for the exam boards. It is definitely Edexcel she is sitting. Her tutor is also teaching this board and new spec too so will be interested to get her take on this.

I have no idea how many pupils sat the higher tier mock, but I have data from last year's GCSE's that may better help you with any advice or comments that you are able to give.

Last year 51% achieved 5 GCSE grade A - C, and 65.4% achieved GCSE maths grade A - C. The breakdown by grade is as follows:
A* 8.9
A 8.3
B 16.7
C 31.5
D 17.3
E 7.7
F 3.0
G 1.8
U 4.8

Once again, thanks all - this is very interesting.