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

Yes, Mother of the Year here for "letting" DS fail his English language GCSE by one fucking mark last summer. Cold day in hell, indeed. We planned that well didn't we? 🙄

I think there are some basics you're lacking, clearly.

What grade did you get for GCSE Maths?

What do you do now?

On a scale of 1-10, how happy are you?

Show that as a bar chart.

It's the very definition of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

When someone struggles with something like maths, they often need a different approach to be taken.

Unless you can get a very good private tutor, your child doing resit maths classes at college will just be hearing the same information they were already taught in the same way. There's no earthly reason why they will now achieve what they couldn't achieve the previous year, because nothing has changed if the reason they did not pass was because they struggled grasp the subject.

I’m currently studying for a degree which requires a lot of maths. I’m doing reasonably well in it so far.

I still cannot undersrand trigonometry!

People have different skills. Not sure what is so difficult to understand about that?

My 18yr old flunked all his GCSE's and resat his Maths & English twice at college.....and still didn't pass.It was all so demoralising and depressing. So, focusing on his 'soft skills' - being entrepreneurial, hardworking and successful in other ways, I helped him knock up a great CV. I pulled him out of college one day to attend a jobs fair to meet employers and chat in person - a few days after his birthday. He landed himself a full time job, immediately left college before he was about to do a third resit....and is very happy on a starting salary of 25k with career progression. And I couldn't be prouder!

It's a bit more complicated. They use a bell curve to look at what the 'normal' distribution of scores is. Most people will be around average, with a smaller proportion doing either less or more well, and a very small proportion doing exceptionally badly or well. So they adjust the pass mark so that the distribution of scores fits with that 'normal' curve. They also look at work samples and other data.

Ultimately, though, it is impossible for everyone to pass.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/gcse-and-a-level-grading-what-you-need-to-know/gcse-and-a-level-grading-what-you-need-to-know#:~:text=Exam%20boards%20set%20grade%20boundaries,easier%20than%20the%20previous%20year.

It should be "Have they done enough to show they are working at Grade 4, Grade 5 etc".

It makes no sense to me. They're basically saying they don't care how good the kids are at maths, they'll just fail anyone in the bottom third.

Also - how do they set the pass rate for the exams in November - which are generally retake exams.

You have a different population taking them - people who didn't get a 4 first time.

Is it set so 30% of those won't get a 4 or is it set differently?

So how can a nation improve at maths or English if the percentage of people expected to pass is kept constant?

That's mathematically impossible. I could prove that with algebra!

Jesus. The fucking ableism on this thread. I have 2 intelligent sons. Lockdown and some family issues destroyed them in different ways.

DS1, who is way better at maths than me, got a 3 or 4 (I can't remember which). He has 'failed' his English (grade2) 3 times. He's is perfectly literate, but just can't do the exam.

DS2 has always been above average in everything. By year 11 he wasn't in school due to EBSA. I was more concerned that his MH would deteriorate even more than what grades he got. I honestly never would have guessed a year or 2 earlier that we'd end up there, but we did.

So to say it will be a cold day in he'll before I let my DC leave without passing
Or Barring extreme learning difficulties and SEN how hard is it to get a 4 and to scrape a pass? is so fucking offensive. You have no idea. Any I sincerely hope you never find out.

Yes that is how GCSEs are marked across the board. The pass mark does vary from year to year but the percentage allocated to each grade boundary remains the same

SATs is exactly the same BTW so last year had an awful maths paper so the pass mark was lower the number who passed was the same

You are talking about the Higher Paper

This is a Higher Paper

https://cdn.sanity.io/files/p28bar15/green/fc9ef8262b581fcc2228663a1afda68985a45db0.pdf

Well woohoo for him. My daughter got 6s and 7s in her mocks and then completely fell apart in her actual exams and only ended up with a 5 and two 4s. The rest she failed, it was a massive shock to be honest, she just panicked.

Is that true?

Are you saying that they look at the people who have taken the Foundation Maths paper and say - we are going to set a Grade 4 so 30% will not get it.

Because how come they keep talking about the GCSE Maths pass rate changing every year if it's designed to be the same pass rate?

My son has learning disabilities. He’s 23 and still in education. He has to do his English and maths gcse every year. Last year he finally got a grade 1 in maths after a few years of U. He also got a 1 in English again.

It’s ridiculous that this is something he has to do. He will never ever get a 4. He comes out of maths lessons and tells me he’s done fractions, for example, but can’t tell me what that means.

The only saving grace is he’s very laid back, likes lessons, and exams don’t stress him. If they did I wouldn’t let him do them.

Of my other sons 3 passed first time and 1 is retaking again (also has SEN)

I failed mine first time (got an E) refused to go to a college that would have made me retake it and then passed with a C when I went back to evening classes at 23.

I know many young people who struggle to get a grade 4 in maths and they are bright and intelligent people. Some people just don’t cope well taking on board information and then regurgitating it in exam situations but if they had a job where they needed to use maths for a specific function and someone showed them how to do it I’m sure they’d be fine. In the real world if you get stuck with a mathematical problem you have a calculator and chatGPT in your pocket anyway!

as has been explained several times the grade four pass Mark is closer to.60% on the foundation paper.

Look at this paper here

https://cdn.sanity.io/files/p28bar15/green/1170ee44760aa53249c184343b19e67944c49a52.pdf

At about Q15, we start getting linear inequalities, nth term,internal angles of a polygon, translations,volume of a hemisphere and algebra with machines working at different rates.

Difficult stuff for many people.And is it useful maths for most people?

You really don't need to do much more than "basic numeracy" to get a grade 4. Basically, just a quarter of the syllabus and you're probably there.

That will be basic level fractions, percentages, etc which are "life skills", a small amount of simple algebra (again a basic life skill), maybe a simple task like the area and circumference of a simple shape like a square or circle - again pretty simple "life skill".

You really don't need to be able to solve complex equations, calculate the area of a sphere, or the area of a trapezium, or derive the compound interest equation to get a grade 4!!

The key is to ignore the stuff that's beyond you and spend the time on getting the 20/25% of the marks that you need for the grade 4 by spending more time making sure you get all marks available on the simpler/basic questions and the first parts of the harder questions which are usually simple to pick up a mark or two.

The idea that people can be made - forcibly - to resit maths until they're 25 is really bizarre.

And wholly silly.

Who'd pay for all the resits for a start?

What do you want a medal praising you for perfect parenting? Oh no, because despite what you believe your child’s academic prowess is nothing to do with you but rather an innate ability or inability to excel at a particular subject.

Not every single child is the same. I was incredibly bright at school, many years ago, I got all A’s at GCSE’s before they even gave A stars however I barely scraped a C in maths. In fact it nearly broke me trying to do it.
Im a fully functioning adult in society, have a decent job. Im actually a TA and spend my days helping children like me do maths. I also have a huge amount of empathy and compassion which you seem to lack.

It's not compulsory to retake until you're 25!. In fact over 16 nobody will be chasing your kids to make sure they're in education at all. BUT for most college courses they will need to retake if they don't have the pass. But generally if the fail the first resit they are offered functional skills instead. Most jobs will require 4 in maths and English or equivalent as a basic minimum level as will all university courses.

It’s 18, not 25. A simple google will show you that!

That's the thing my 18 year is Diabetic and calculate,s his insulin on a daily basis ,as it keeps him.alive ,but is really struggling to.achieve a four.