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

The economy requires a numerate population regardless of whether any particular individual uses every element of their maths gcse or not.

"most people won't use GCSE maths" - say that to all the people working in STEM careers and have quantitative jobs. GCSE maths is a steeping stone to A-level and university level maths.

My DS is an economist and uses mathematical concepts all the time.

Some who struggle with GCSE and functional skills find Edexcel’s Awards in Mathematics more accessible. There are 2 different awards - number and measure which can be sat at level 1 and level 2 and algebra which can be sat at level 2 and level 3. Although not seen as equivalent to GCSE, they can help some DC have a sense of success.

WHAT!😳. who told you that?. Grade 4 is 50-60%

My now 22 year old got 4+ in everything except maths, he worked his socks off to achieve those grades. Due to his age, he did 3 years of college, and resat maths every year, his highest grade was a 3. He now has a secure job he loves, and is doing well for himself. My 18 year old got 7+ without even trying at all. My youngest is sitting hers now and revises every spare minute, because she wants to get higher grades than my middle son. Nothing to do with her future goals.

GCSE's are not the be all and end all. Not all children are academic. Not all adults go on to be in the top 10% of earners. If your childs aspirations are to be a mechanic, or a chef, or in the arts, or play computer game professionally, or to be an athelete, or whatever it may be, its our job are parents to guide and support that ambition, maybe discuss how realistic that ambition is and encourage a back up plan, but its their ambition whether its what we would chose for them or not. As long as you tell your child the most important thing is to try their best, the grade doesnt actually matter. "It'll be a cold day in hell" and other comments like that do not build up a child to do their best, it could lead to them feeling like a failure before they have even started.

In answer to the OP, they resit if lower than a 4 in further education, if thats where they decide to go, but not until they are 25.

I also agree that the pass mark should be set at a specific standard and not related to how other children do

But we assess the standard of the paper by looking at how the children do on it. If it was a hard paper, the kids do worse and the grade boundaries are lowered.

It is basically impossible to set a paper that is exactly the same level of difficulty each year. A fixed pass mark would disadvantage those who get a hard paper and advantage those who get an easier one.

I have been working with my DC for months on foundation paper maths so I am very familiar with it. He has no SEN and is of middling intelligence. He should get a 4 and has a good chance of a 5. This is consistent with his CAT scores. He works very hard and some of the comments on here are upsetting to read. The foundation paper is not just about simple numeracy. It includes simultaneous equations, laws of indices, trigonometry, Pythagoras, bearings, probability, Venn diagrams, reverse percentages, compound interest, calculating equations of graphs, highest common factors ….. The grade boundaries seem to be increasing year on year and I think you now need around 60% for a 4 and 70% for a 5. You probably could get away without learning simultaneous equations if you do well on the rest of the paper, but the questions definitely exist.

I also agree that the pass mark should be set at a specific standard and not related to how other children do. My DS has got a 5 on pretty much all past papers he’s done, but he’s not far over (75-80%) so if the grade boundaries go up again….

English Language is a bigger worry for us, but that’s a different thread…..

@Emanresuunknown Simultaneous equations are on the foundation syllabus.

There are lots of things you could get away with not knowing, but you can't not know all of them as it leaves zero room for error on any of the other questions.

Pretty sure you don't need to do simultaneous equations to get gd4 maths?

But you probably do need to be able to confidently do stuff like calculate percentages (pretty important if you want to understand how your mortgage interest works), understand stuff like fractions and ratios (often used in measurement etc in stuff like construction), and be confident enough with numbers to be able work out what's left from your pay packet after you've paid your bills?
Maths is important in life.

What I do disagree with though is the fact that exam boards determine the percentage of kids getting a 4 and generally only barely half of kids will get a GCSE maths pass or higher each year even if they are better at maths than the previous year. So even though kids maths skills probably get better and better each year as standards are driven up, they literally don't allow more than about 58% or 59% of them overall to get a decent pass at maths.
It doesn't reflect maths ability, it reflects whether you were in the top 60% of the year at maths, nationally.

Is grading with numbers more confusing than letters?
To me its no difference.

Oh and while we are here discussing this.
There is government funding post 18 if you haven't got your maths or English.

Only it turns out there is a gap, if you leave college after 2 years you have to wait a year for the adult education funding to kick in as you have to be 19 on the 1st Sept of the academic year. Wonderful.

Indeed my sons college doesn't even though I was told they did ,we are both just desperate for him to get through so he can finally move on to.an apprenticeship.

I think the education system should really be asking itself why 1/3 of children are leaving KS4 without that basic, essential gateway qualification by design of the system. Could it be there's something wrong with the qualification system , not the children?

Additionally, it is all very well saying there is functional skills, but many colleges don't actually offer L2 FS as an option. It requires different lessons to the GCSE so costs them more to put on.

I see your maths and raise your combined science.

It's not though it s not just ,basic mental.arithmetic it cover ,s a much wider syllabus most of which most people will.never use once they leave education .

Grade 4 at maths means "basically numerate, can be trusted to carry out tasks that require a basic understanding of how numbers work" - it is a pretty low standard. Employers generally won't employ anyone who doesn't have a grade 4 in maths so of course the rule has tp be to keep educating people until they achieve this baseline, otherwise you are accepting that they will never be employed.

If a child can't manage a grade 4 on the 2nd/3rd attempt there is an alternative qualification "functional skills maths" which at level 2 is equivalent to a grade 4 at GCSE, and has more "real world" numeracy questions.

I think this is a big issue for functional skills Maths too. The questions are so wordy.

The content of the gcse maths is huge. Even at foundation level they have to learn the content to sit 3 exam papers. Why? It's just too much, and as said above, learn the content for sometimes 10 other subjects, very least most kids do 8 gcses, each 2 or 3 papers worth of content

It's true that the content of maths GCSE is huge compared to other subjects. There have been long campaigns to get it split into two GCSEs to account for this but all that has been achieved is that maths counts for 2 GCSEs in government league table measures.

The other thing that some people forget is that Maths exams require good English comprehension. Students don't just have to be able to do the maths. They have to be able to work out what maths is being asked for. The insistence on using complicated names doesn't help. I was helping a boy who was on course to fail, who had very poor literacy. Half his problem was that he couldn't say the name of the person in the question. I had to specifically teach him that no matter what the name was, he could change it to 'Tom' and 'Jane'. Then he could at least read the question. But then he had to understand the question and pull out the facts. I do think that acts as almost double testing.

" Imo maths and English should be purely competency based, not on a Bell curve. Functional skills L2 is a good qualification for those who find these difficult."

This

Can you imagine people doing a driving test, but only a certain percentage would fail, even if they had reached the agreed competency of driving..

If you have ADHD or something and you have 10 other subjects to think of at once, that in itself can be a real challenge and a barrier that can hinder people. It can feel very overwhelming and most schools have 30 kids to a class, so the teacher can’t dedicate time to explaining concepts or moving at the pace of individual learners. Everyone learns differently and some people just can’t take in information in the time frame that maths is taught.
Even if you dont have adhd or dyscalculia, this is incredibly hard for some children. The content of the gcse maths is huge. Even at foundation level they have to learn the content to sit 3 exam papers. Why? It's just too much, and as said above, learn the content for sometimes 10 other subjects, very least most kids do 8 gcses, each 2 or 3 papers worth of content. My DS1 struggled hugely with maths. He constantly got 3's, often one mark off, as he did in the exam. We were able to throw money at it and he got a 5 in the November resit after tutoring, by basically drilling him in exam papers. That's not him suddenly knowing the basics after not knowing the basics. That's pure exam technique as to how to sit 3 exam papers. Imo maths and English should be purely competency based, not on a Bell curve. Functional skills L2 is a good qualification for those who find these difficult.

My DC really struggled with some other subjects. So he knuckled down, persevered till he got it and managed a good grade.