To have not known kids have to attain grade 4 in maths?

I agree.
But the world has changed immeasurably, and we’re stuck with it.

Well, they used to manage it. The trick was, you didn't walk in to a job at the top level.

Only the top 5% of the country would have had degrees in my mother's day. When I went to uni it was 19% of the country. Today, it's over 50%

It's much harder now to start at the bottom and work up. Gone are the days, it seems, of starting on the factory floor and ending up in middle/high management, like my stepdad who left school at 15 with no qualifications at all did.

There are fewer and fewer non-academic routes into many industries now. And I don't think that's a good thing.

The thing is a lot of these jobs never used to need a degree in the first place. It's because Blair wanted 50% to go to Uni that so many have degrees now and lazy employers used it to weed out and reduce the number of applicants. Now the employers who genuinely need the "best" people are having to find new ways of weeding out people. Many would be better just to go back to A level based entry (or even GCSE level) and use other criteria to select the best by other means.

Unfortunately that doesn't deal with the problem of people without that magic piece of paper not even getting a foot in the door to take those aptitude tests which they may well pass, despite not having spent 3 years at Uni, which is also perfectly possible
Well, yes.
My point exactly. Without the qualifications to start with you won’t get a lookin.

Many big employers are now using ever more ingenious aptitude tests, assessment centres, etc. My son says that some of the questions he had to answer in online recruitment tests for his financial services job applications were far harder and challenging than in his Maths degree final exams! They didn't just "tick a box" and give him a job because he had a First in Maths - they used their own selection processes (over several stages) for him to prove he had the "intelligence" to suit their needs.

When it's well known and accepted that a Maths degree from one university is at a different level than a Maths degree from a different university, employers need to find new ways of weeding out potentially hundreds of applicants with what appears to be the same piece of paper!

Unfortunately that doesn't deal with the problem of people without that magic piece of paper not even getting a foot in the door to take those aptitude tests which they may well pass, despite not having spent 3 years at Uni, which is also perfectly possible.

Indeed, but how else can you demonstrate your intelligence in a way employers will take seriously?

Even with same board you can get different levels - foundation, intermediate and Higher in maths here and few other subjects- and they have slightly different content - so even with buying right board with revision guides you have to also make sure it is the right level same with any past papers.

WJEC is the welsh board and despite still having GCSE we have letters still A*-G not the English system of numbers.

When DH and I sat our GCSE back in the day and niece few years ago in England schools sat with dfifferent exam boards for different subjects - the schools pick the exam boards for each subject.

In Wales unless private all it all the same exam board - WJEC.

English Lit and History - will have clear differences in syllabus- science and maths less so but there can be minor differnces in topics covered.

I was always bemused the local bookshops had exam guides for other boards and then wonder why they didn't sell.

Maths in Wales GCSE level we haven't bought books as there both the WJEC question bank full of past questions and topics and a website somone set up with https://www.mathsdiy.com/ with topic booklets and past papers and worked answers.

It's been very hard to find any text books for WJEC further maths A-level- as while there similarities with other boards there are huge differnces according to his maths and further maths teachers.

There is no one board that RG uni accept most of they are all assumed to be equivalent levels if with different sylabuses and areas covered - plus scottish education system is completely different and Uni are all use to taking many different qualifications as they take different countries students.

How important study guides are depends on teaching and school - they were vital for DS with really disrupted teaching and vitually no notes to revise from and with a few learning issues - they are not as vital for DD2 same school few years later as the teaching been more consistent and revsions guidance existing this year - though she still does past papers at home as well as school ie in addition to homework and exams styles questions in the revision guides.

Oh and to answer your question @cakeorwine. I didn’t say the content of the overall syllabus is different in maths. That doesn’t mean there aren’t differences though. The calculator/non-calculator point in my pp is just one example. Teen mentions another with the style of the questions. A further example is the length of papers and number of papers is different for WJEC Eduqas to, say, AQA.

@cakeorwine so even if your child does GCSE maths, you don’t think it is important to know whether paper one is a non-calculator paper (AQA or Edexcel) or calculator paper (OCR)? You don’t think that is a significant difference that will influence preparation? We will have to agree to disagree on that!

There are some state special schools who sit IGCSE (not always in maths but in other subjects), and since the thread includes discussing DC with SEN, there will be some DC the thread is relevant to who attend state schools but sit IGCSE. And not all pupils attend a state school.

.... and parents posting about education on MN tend to be the involved ones!

@BornSandyDevotional To actually answer the question re why it helps to know the exam board in maths if they are all testing the same stuff.

Ultimately because when you do practice questions / papers each board has their own 'style'. For example one may have more longer wordy questions whereas another may have shorter worded ones, or one may have a tendency to mix up topics in the same question (see infamous Hannahs sweets in 2015) whereas another may keep things more separate.

It matters much more for other subjects than maths where you may need board specific revision guides, but you may as well do practice papers for the same board.

If a parent is a hands off parent with an organised motivated child at an organised good school you can ignore it all.

However if you want or need to be an involved parent then knowing the board is generally quite key.

Sadly, I don't think there's many who'd consider me incredibly clever, but I am weirdly above average in English. Average to crap in just about everything else, but was able to read at the age of 3.

I was in school with someone like that @ObelixtheGaul .
It was abroad and you needed maths at a basic level, regardless of what you studied.
She qualified for the top university English degree which was very hard to get into, but had to wait a year to go as she had to repeat to pass basic maths. Such an incredibly clever girl.

It wasn't at school. I went back to do a degree at aged 25. They happened to have dyslexia assessors, because a lot of people were still being missed at school. I'd read an article about this new type of dyslexia and bells were clanging, so, since the assessment was free, I went and asked about it. They had heard of it, but didn't have a separate assessment as such, so I went through the whole thing.

At the end, they said I had the maths age of a 10 year old, and the massive discrepancy between that and my English capabilities was really obvious. Actually, the whole thing was quite fascinating. Turned out there were quite a few other traits I had, but of course my ability in English had meant it would never have been considered.

Although....I think my old school maths teacher suspected something. Dyslexia had just become a thing, and he was the school's assessor. My mum told me he asked her at parents evening what I was like in my other subjects, how did I get on in English, and when she said, 'oh, it's her best subject, she's in the top set' he was surprised to hear it. My mum was a bit miffed about it at the time, it seemed like he didn't believe her, but later I wondered if he saw the signs...

You should know if your child is doing IGCSE or not. But State Schools in England do GCSEs.

Do you think the maths contents for the GCSE Maths specification is different between OCR,AQA abd Edexcel

The subject content of this specification matches that set out in the Department for Education’s Mathematics GCSE subject content and assessment objectives document. This content is common to all exam boards.
The content has been organised into broad topic areas and given a reference as follows:

• Number references start with N
• Algebra references start with A
• Ratio, proportion and rates of change references start with R
• Geometry and measures references start with G
• Probability references start with P
• Statistics references start with S.

https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/mathematics/2015/specification-and-sample-assesment/gcse-maths-2015-specification.pdf

https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/168982-specification-gcse-mathematics.pdf

https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/mathematics/gcse/mathematics-8300/specification/subject-content

Not really

The maths expectations and type of maths covered between the different exam boards should be pretty similar at GCSE.

I'm impressed you got a diagnosis 20 years ago for dyscalculia. I hadn't even realised that was what was wrong with me. My teachers thought me somewhat of an enigma as I was in top sets for everything else but I managed to work myself down to the 3rd set for maths and had a lovely teacher who would give me extra help at lunch times. I'd always described it as "like dyslexia but with numbers" until I realised it was an actual thing!

BornSandyDevotional - I’ve just had a look and you made both comments that I was quoting on.

Where have I claimed it’s my way or nothing? - you asked why parents choose to research their child’s exam board and we replied with our reasonings, you then came back and stated that many parents aren’t invested in their children’s wellbeing and independent critical thinking, some of us pointing out that we are not a one path band when it comes to our children.

Im not sure why or even how you’ve come to this conclusion tbh.

I actively help my children towards exams.

Because they're able to pass them.

I am finding this thread utterly impossible.

Not everyone does stuff in exactly the same way you do.

It doesn't make you better.

Or them.

Why the personal attack, there?

It wasn’t a personal attack 🙄

I read your post and in my opinion it read as condescending and patronising to parents who actively help their children be prepared for exams.

Not sure why you’ve brought the litmus test into the discussion, if you choose to be vulgar and spiteful, please do so within MN rules!

Edited , as I did mention in my comment “To the OP who mentioned intelligence” if this wasn’t you then I apologise as my comment was not in reference to you.

What a strange post. So you don’t have a proper answer as to why at 22.34 you originally mentioned it in response to my post?

You may not intend to come across as though you are sneering but that is exactly how you are coming across.

I tried to convince you that I haven't tried to convince you that I'm trying to convince you of anything and then I mentioned it in response to your post because you said you hadn't tried to convince me in your post and then I'd tried to convince you of something in my post that I wasn't convinced of in your post and.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I didn't sneer. That's a really unpleasant word.

Why the personal attack, there?

I didn't do well at Chemistry GCSE. But I do know the colour you turn litmus paper just by looking at it.

I can be vulgar and spiteful too!

I very much doubt you've had a worse day than me. So I'm allowing myself that even though it doesn't make me feel better at all.