A2 Further Maths - no of hours teaching per week?

at my ds & dd's college they get 4.5 hours for each AS and the same for A'levels - that includes FM

at ds's school it is treated as a normal option with 5 hrs 20 min per week.Although i think there are 1 or 2 pupils doing at home

Just for your records my DS was at the local state 6th form - quite a good one and very good for maths. He got lower offers as doing FM, and has found it v useful at uni doing History & Economics.

Good luck with the email, would be very interested to hear their response.

I've found this very interesting. Many years ago when I did maths we were taught 5hrs for maths and 5 hrs for further maths. I was quite surprised by the amount of teaching that my daughter is having (the lack of!).
She actually has 5hrs and 50 minutes per week of maths. This compares with 4 hrs and 40 minutes for physics! No wonder she is spending hours at the weekend doing maths.
She is at a selective school.

Sorry if I've been confusing but DD2 was a full option block timetabled for FM ie 5 hours per week for Maths and 5 for Further Maths - so you have slightly more than 75% in your survey. DD2 also got lower university offers on the basis of having FM.

JustGettingByMum
Apologies I had it wrong. DS's lessons are 50 minutes not 1 hour.
DS is at a none selective 6th form college. They are not allowed to do FM without Maths. Those doing Maths and FM are taught together with 10 lessons a week. They have different Maths teachers for some of the lessons. At the moment he is doing mechanics in FM and core 1 (whatever that is), in Maths.
When we visited the college they told he would do Maths in Year 12 and FM in year 13 but it doesn't seem to be working out that way.
He is also doing three sciences so has 5 x blocks of 5 sessions lesson time a week.

My DS is at a top university (UCL) and he took three A-levels - Maths, Further Maths and Physics. They very much considered FM on the same level as the other two.

Is there such a thing as a fourth A-level? Which English universities stipulate four in their offers? Aren't apparent rejections of FM because they actively want good grades in the other subjects?

My son did further Maths and had five hours a week with only two in the class. He did the "single Maths A level in Y12 and FM in Y13. He also could declare his grade on his UCAS form for a Maths degree!

Its a myth that lots of universities only accept Further Maths as a 4th A level - I think its only medical schools that specify this. There was a long thread about it awhile ago.

No, I've done further maths A level. I'm far from the only person on this thread saying it's fine to do it with that amount of timetable time (obviously there needs to be personal study too - doing questions, really). IME maths teachers are brilliant at teaching but they can't get blood out of a stone (hence the fact that everyone doesn't do great at GCSE). Most people doing A level do very well, this is because maths teachers are great and the kids know what they are doing (self selecting sample). It's a really good combination. But there is a reason why many universities only consider FM a 4th A level.

Why do you think your DS won't be able to manage, if his school - who should be the experts - think it's fine?

DD2 did Maths and Further maths for A level and had 5 hours per week for both of them over the two years. If anything she could have managed with less Maths time rather than less Further Maths hours, she was able to pick up the Maths stuff quite easily but needed more time on the later Further Maths modules. If the two are taught together in a smaller amount of time by schools its the Maths content that is whizzed through rather than the FM.

Some of the A2 Further Maths modules such as Mechanics 3 looked horrible to me - not the sort of thing you should try and teach yourself. DD2 is a good mathematician who is about to start her second year studying Maths at university and she would have found it difficult to have so few teaching hours for Further Maths.

OP - the fact that I didn't agree with you doesn't mean that my comments were unhelpful - it just means I didn't re-enforce your own opinion. Since my opinion is based on the experience of actually doing further maths I think you are foolish to completely discount it. There is no evidence so far - there just can't be - that your DS won't be able to do just fine with the amount of teaching his school (which presumably knows his capabilities) has scheduled for him. Why assume he won't be able to do it? It seems like you don't want the encouragement of knowing that 2 hours a week is just fine, but instead want to be told there is a terrible problem.

My DS is doing engineering at University. He did do FM, but those who didn't had to do a remedial course in the first year to catch up. Most universities will not insist on having FM as they recognise that many schools do not offer it.

At my DS's school, they do the full maths A-level in y12, followed by FM in Y13. This worked out well as it meant there was a proper grade on the UCAS form rather than just predictions :)

I'd agree with noblegiraffe - even 25 years ago with the old A level content I was at a definite disadvantage at Uni (studying economics) not having taken FM. So its not only going to be those who are exceptionally mathematical and going to move on to maths degrees who want to follow the course.

I'm another who didn't have any timetabled further maths lessons (some lunchtime sessions but mainly self-taught), so if you're good at maths you really don't need a teacher all the time, just decent resources, plenty of questions to do and the answers.

However, maths a-level had content removed to further maths in 2005 (to improve maths take-up which was falling dramatically). Maths A-level + further maths AS is now comparable to the old A-level content. Therefore further maths should be made accessible to more than just people who can just do maths. People who want to do maths at uni should do maths and further maths (unis need to catch up and make this a requirement), people who want to do maths heavy subjects like physics or engineering should at least take further maths AS and others doing science or social science should take maths at A or AS.
The Further Maths Support Network now offers free online tuition to students who want to study further maths but whose school doesn't offer it. They also run study centres and free online revision seminars in order to encourage more students to take further maths. There is a crisis in maths education and we need more students to take it post-16, not fewer.

Well,my DS1 had a bad start with FM - just didn't do enough work at the beginning and struggled to catch up (lazy complacent boy thing). However we got him a good tutor for a couple of terms, and the school were supportive, and he ended up with an A... I think if you are good enough to consider FM, and are accepted onto the course then the school has a duty to teach you properly. Not everyone is a maths whizz, in DS1s case he was pretty good, but there were others who were better, but with the right support and work he got his A.

@faxthat I disagree. There really is no point doing further Maths if it's going to be a struggle.

However good you are, if you are taking the subject you deserve the teaching time IMHO. If the school can't timetable it, then they should not offer it.
Mnistoo is right - head or deputy would be better.

Depends on how good you are at maths really.

I did Further Maths (A rather than AS) a dozen or so years ago, and I had no teaching time at all, as it wasn't offered at my college (they did buy me the textbook I asked for though), and did it in a year (I got an A). I tend to think if you are good enough at maths to be taking Further Maths in the first place, you are not going to need much teaching.

I'm by no means a maths genius, not going to solve Fermat's Last Theorem or anything like that, and have never done any really hard maths, but I would say that if you are doing Further Maths at all you should be exceptionally mathematically able and two hours is plenty.

At DS's school, the top set do Maths & FM together in ONE option block.
DS's set do Maths + AS FM (over 2 years) in one block.
Lower sets just do the Maths - I don't think they offer FM as a separate subject!