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

Totally agree. My DD learned to read by sight. Her reading was great but she couldn’t pass a phonics test to save her life! Her teacher told me not to worry as some children NEVER understand phonics. So why make it the only way to learn to read in school?!

Maths has always been difficult too. And ironically it was hard because they teach lots of different methods to do the same thing. She was absolutely baffled. I got her a tutor in Y4 to find out what she did/didn’t know. Surprise surprise, she’d been mixing up all the different methods she’d been told and was going round and round in circles.

She’s had a tutor throughout Y10 and Y11 to help her get her GCSE maths. It’s cost a fortune. Money I really don’t have but she has to get the elusive G4. She has never passed a mock… she’s desperate to get onto an L3 course at college. She’s trying so so hard. I don’t know what else she can do.

I didn’t realise that 1/3 will fail anyway. How ridiculous. And demoralising. Surely they should just state what the pass mark is and be done! She could do it next year and get a 5 and only get a 3 this year with the same level of achievement. Makes no sense to me.

Civil engineers and architects?

Nail on the head. Teach those basics in a "life/work" way and you've cracked what's essential for a functioning working adult. We're back to something like the 11+ exam. Those who havn't looked at one should do, it's quite illuminating as to the types of "Maths" that's examined and the level for 11 year olds. We should use that standard of Maths for 16 year olds who have been struggling throughout secondary years - reduce the breadth and difficulty of the content and concentrate on more relevant "real life" style of numeracy.

Well said @ObelixtheGaul
The graduate market is brutal right now as well.

what absolute rubbish! nobody needs to know what the angles of a quadrilateral shape add up to or how to work out the volume of a pyramid. it’s utter tosh. if you can do addition, multiplication, division, ratios, fractions and percentages that’s more than enough to get you through day to day life

This is true I used to be a nurse and worked with a lot of health care assistants, who can be invaluable to the health service
Although many came from a wide nd varied background,s it wasent a job that llrequired qualifications as such ,( although I think the trust i worked for gave successful candidates basic numeracy and literacy tests for those who didn't have any GCSE,s
Basically if you had good common sense, were articulate and caring ,you would be ideal for the job
Nowadays some trusts want candidates to have NVQ,s and Btechs some even have apprenticeship, s for HCA,s

The problem now as I see it is that it's an employer's market right now. 30 odd years ago, when I started working, there were a lot more jobs 'for the masses' - factories, etc, that paid enough to live on, (even though the NMW didn't even exist when I started work, the cost of living was a lot lower. I rented a flat on my own and had spare after bills on a low wages factory job. Imagine that now!).

Today's cohorts of young people are struggling to see NMW as an option. It won't pay for them to leave home, have a mortgage etc, as it once did for us. Employers now will have hundreds of applicants. If looking at school leavers, they raise the bar because they can. Because there's 50 applicants with experience applying that they could hire, so what's going to make them choose the wet behind the ears graduate?

It's not just the pay, there simply aren't as many of the mass employment jobs there once were. No typing pools now, fewer factories altogether. The 'go-tos' for the masses are disappearing at an alarming rate. Jobs that aren't 'trade' but used to employ thousands.

The rise in technology does create jobs, but not so much at the unskilled end. Added to this we now have young people who simply don't want to be 'blue collar' even for a short period of time. The potential workforce not only can't afford NMW, they've been told from a young age it's not good enough for them. Far more of the cohort leaving secondary school this year will not only expect to study at college to go on to uni, but will expect to be starting at a higher wage. They will also expect flexible working hours and a good work/life balance. Which is why so many won't be looking at trades or NHS work, or care work. They want bank holidays, Christmas, WFH, flexitime, no weekends.

They are queuing up for the office jobs, and those nice offices have their pick.

It's a hard world today for lots of reasons, and I am bloody glad to have started when I did and not now. It's more competitive, much harder to get a living wage.

There's a real and tangible difference between educated "Maths" and basic lifestyle day to day numeracy, and I think it's time that our education system accepted and embraced the difference.

Been done in Wales for years - next exam upheaval coming soon they go back to one GCSE.

It seems to have been treated like English Lang and Lit - everyone asks for English language - next step still mostly wanted the maths GCSE not the numeracy.

Exactly. I struggled with retaining maths. In the lesson things are easy, but give it a few days and I forget how it’s done. I’m the sort of person who needs maths to be repeated ad nauseam before it sticks, and at school topics move on so quick

I honestly wonder how wide spread this is.

My kids had overlearning thanks to maths factor - needed same with spelling and reading - phonics being a huge help for them.

They also need things explicitly being pointed out - so they had half = divide by 2 = times by a half - pointed out as the background noise to their lives as mathametical literacy it's just there in our house - from kids TV - number jack, number blocks - to parental coversations to maths games - to general life spliting cake, toys up.

I remember the frusation with the extra spelling lessons I was made to do during GCSE English with a teacher who'd never struggled with spelling. I remember asking for rules/guidance about adding suffixes and changing works - she said oh never thought about it you'll just have to learn each case. Luckily for our kids there were explained in a spelling program we did with practise and exceptions learnt.

The other advice I was constantly given was sound out words. Problem there is I really struggle to hear sounds in words - affected my early speach - and then I hadn't been taught phonics - and thus I either hadn't known all the trigraphs or diagphs or I was really shaky on them even if I could hear the sound didn't always know which letters it could be. No-one grasphed why I struggled they'd shrug saying well English is hard to spell phonically - so why suggest it as a statergy.

It was an exercise in frustration so stopped going and went back to the actual English lessons I'd been missing. I spent maths exams plugging maths gaps with number knowledge I did have - thats to solid maths teaching - and rest using synonyms I could spell or reconstructing sentences on fly to get round words I coudl not. I can see why some explain dsyleixa as a drag - you end up doing so much to appear the same and then get told your stupid or lazy or should just get things others do.

Good teaching is clearly incredibly helpful - having the basics solid is huge help - but not sure that schools can cover all the practise that's needed by some.

DC early maths teaching in schools all revolved around fun games - and they frequently missed, forgot or never understood the underlying principlas behind the games. So do wonder if some schools make learning maths harder for some kids with the techniques they use.

If only i could get my son on functional skills.

The opposite is true too! I've got clients who are in "numerate" jobs like IT consultants, architects, engineers, etc., who really struggle with basic numeracy although they're fine with complex calculations, logic, etc.

A very common one is VAT. They don't "get" the difference between net and gross. If they've paid, say, £1.20 for a Mars bar, they seem to think that the 20% VAT they've paid is 24p rather than the correct figure of 20p. Complete inability to understand grossing up/down from net to gross and gross to net! That matters massively when they're invoicing their clients for work done and expenses etc., or doing their VAT return and reclaiming the VAT spent on their costs. Simple percentages are probably second or third year at secondary school, but these are people with good passes in Maths at GCSE and A level and some with a Maths degree, but "day to day" basic numeracy seems to be alien to them. One of them is a structural engineer doing all kinds of amazingly complex calculations for strengths of RSJs, angles and sizes of pitched roofs etc., but can barely pay the right figure when paying a couple of bills, and whose "book-keeping" is all over the place with columns that don't add up or cross cast - even on computerised spreadsheets! Whereas I've also got "trades" clients who barely have any school qualifications at all who "get it" straight away, can invoice with no problems, manage their business finances, no problems, do their book-keeping, no problems.

There's a real and tangible difference between educated "Maths" and basic lifestyle day to day numeracy, and I think it's time that our education system accepted and embraced the difference. Having foundation and Higher level Maths isn't anywhere near enough of a difference! I'd go further and split it into two distinct subjects where pupils take numeracy first, and ONLY when they pass (which can be at any year) a numeracy test, can they move up to more formal Maths learning/exams. Those who struggle at the numeracy level, just carry on year on year until they do reach the level, but obviously won't move up to Maths as it's own subject, which is right as they'll never do well at higher concepts if they struggled at the basic/core level of numeracy.

Some people won't have passed the Grade 4, it doesnt mean they aren't numerate at all. Of course some people do have very poor numeracy, but there will be many others who just can't manage the style and syllabus of the exams and actually do fine handling numbers in real life situations without the pressure. This would include many workplaces.

It's an easy benchmark to use, but it's being used (along with English) to screen out large numbers of people from jobs who could probably do them perfectly well. Who then become longterm unemployed and economically inactive.

From this thread it's clear that Functional Skills (Level 2 being GCSE Grade 4 equivalent) is poorly understood as a qualification.

Yes, I totally agree with all that. Posters saying this gets no argument from me, but as I said, it's the ones gleefully announcing those not getting it are simply thick af.

Agreed. Yes the style of education must change.

So we need to change both in the UK then.

Not just insanely expecting the poor kids to keep re-sitting an exam they'll never "pass" by teaching the same teaching methods that didn't work previously, all the while causing the kids stress and making them feel failures.

I think it's a combination of the educational methods being different and societal expectations being very different.

I have a relative who left school at 15(the last cohort that could). She was employed her whole life, mostly by one employer (NHS) as a seamstress.

Until her late 50s... when seamstresses weren't needed anymore. And found she unemployable

So it can come back on you decades later.

(Her parents made her leave school then as "girls did not need education")

Yes, but what can "we" do about it when higher education, employers, etc are insistent that grade 4 GCSE maths is an entry requirement? "We" know that most jobs don't require degrees, but a degree is now far too often a minimum entry requirement. We have to look at how real life is these days, not how it used to be or how we'd like it to look. The FACT is that education and work options ARE severely limited for those without grade 4 in Maths. Doesn't matter whether we agree with that or not, it is how it is. Short term, we need to find ways of getting kids up to that standard. Long term, we need a change in education/exam systems and even longer term, get back to higher education and employers not lazily using it as a yardstick minimum entry requirement when it doesn't need to be. But it took 20-30 years to get where we are, so we need to prepare for it to take 20-30 years to get back to the sanity that used to prevail!

Yes i agree that paticularl poster was ridiculous and offensive and clearly has no idea what severe learning disabilities actually entails, being crap,at maths doesn't mean someone even has mild learning disabilities, it may indicate a generalised or specific learning difficulty but that's very different to a severe learning disability, and doesn't mean people can't function in society without a grade four
That said the education system is putting blocks in the way that don't need to there and it's sould destroying for some kids.

I fully agree. We need something more "useful for normal life" as a course and exam/test for those who will always struggle with more complicated maths they'll never use. As said upthread, I think the 11+ test standard is pretty good as a "life skill" level of numeracy as it just covers the basics. If some can pass aged 10, then it surely must be within the ability of the majority of strugglers to pass aged 16 IF they're taught at the right level.

I think those of us making those arguments, though, are more responding to the posts indicating we can't function in daily life without a level 4 in maths.

I don't dispute the fact that it's different for young people starting out now, not at all, but I do dispute the notion that those of us missing that particular qualification are incapable of basic function. The fact that so many of us HAVE done all right without, have had mortgages and good jobs, raised families, have pensions, haven't been ripped off by ever scammer going indicates that a grade 3 or lower in maths doesn't equate to the 'severe learning disability' one pp suggested.

I don't, think anyone is disputing that everyone needs a basic level of numeracy and Literacy, but even foundation maths covers a lot more than basic numeracy and some kids really struggle with it
I just want my son to get on an apprenticeship course, he's prepared to start at bottom and work hard ,but maths in particular is holding him back there need ,s to be a different way .

No one is saying otherwise. But forcing kids to keep doing the same, and expecting different results is insanity. Personally, I think the problem arises in schools, with teaching methods, exam structure etc., and that we're letting down far too many kids by not giving them the tools they need to be numerate in adult life.

We need to explore why kids in the Far East such as Singapore are more numerate and can "pass" Maths exams in larger numbers/proportions than in the UK. Unless we're saying that UK kids are thicker than those in Singapore, the only answer is that the way we teach Maths in schools is failing, not the pupils themselves.

Note I'm not saying "teachers" are failing, I'm saying the way we teach is failing, i.e. the whole system, what is taught at what ages, the content of the courses, the content of the exams, etc etc.

A numerate population is one that has a stronger economy with people in well paying jobs.

This! This is what older people don't realise. Yes, back in the 80s you could get a good job and even a profession without a degree, and often without a good Maths grade at GCE/GCSE. Things have changed. At my son's school, a grade 4 in Maths and English were minimum requirements for admission to their sixth form, even if you weren't doing Maths or English! Lots of kids had to leave and go to college instead. Likewise with our sons University admission applications - all the courses he was interested specified minimum grades in Maths and English at GCSE, again whether directly relevant or not. Doors are shut to kids without in the way that they weren't shut 30/40 years ago!

And yes, I know that someone will respond with anecdotes that their son/daughter or neighbour's kid has become a millionaire or a brain surgeon without having a pass at Maths GCSE, but I'm talking mainstream people, not the extreme cases, looking at mainstream careers/professions/trades where the "normal" route through education and training has put up these kind of barriers.