Is it usual to need a grade A GCSE to do A level maths now?

Or he could maybe take the apprentice route, like my brother in law, who left school at 16 with 10 good, though not stellar GCSEs, went to work for a locally based international engineering firm and now earns more than anyone in our extended family - including those with degrees - by some considerable margin and, moreover, loves his job.

Just a thought.

There is a confusion about engineering degrees, but it's not quite as black and white as BlackMogul suggests.

My son is a chartered engineer, having been through two Russell Group universities and an engineering graduate traineeship. The MEng and BEng have common first years, so people can and do switch between the two. My son ended up with the wrong branch of engineering, (long story and not relevant) so switched from M Eng to B Eng. He worked for a year, and then did a MSc Engineering in the branch that did interest him, followed by a graduate engineering programme. He qualified as a Chartered Engineer in pretty much the same time as others who had done an M Eng.

The problem with A level maths (for him at least) was that the emphasis was on the pure maths as an end in itself whereas as an engineer he needed applied maths. So differentiation, integration etc, as academic excercises for for their own sake or the elegance of the maths didn't cut it, but the aha moment came with the 'here's a problem I need to solve, and calculus is a tool to solve it'. Although in his case the mathematical 'tool' he uses most is finite element analysis.

I see it as a little bit like learning a language:some people want wodges of grammar and to read the literature which could be seen as the 'pure' aspect. Others just want to be able to understand and speak, which is the more 'applied' aspect.

But OP, yes, if your son wants to be an engineer, and mine did from the age of 10, he needs the mathematical background, but not necessarily A level, so self study to keep his maths up would help.

My DD scored a level 5C in the ks2 maths, and a 5A in her last report ( end of year 7).
I hope she will get an A in her GCSE ( or whatever Gove has inflicted by that stage), but realistically she may get a B.
Either way, I would strongly discourage her from taking maths to AS as she doesn't have that instinctive feel for maths that DH, me, and both her brothers have. At A level I want her to take the subjects she enjoys as she is more likely to do well in them.

Presumably a mid level 4 kid could also have a good day and get a 4a.

Yes, but the paper itself doesn't give a sublevel only a level. Some schools can divide scores between the boundaries into to thirds to give parents a sub-level but the mark scheme itself doesn't do that. A mid level 4 child scoring a '4a' on a good day will still come out with a level 4.

I don't think that level 5 at KS2 does necessarily mean a child will be capable of getting a good grade at A level. But mentioning the 2 marks of a level 5 seems to be more evidence of the OP's misunderstanding of her child's maths attainment at most stages of his education. Which is why she's blaming the secondary school for lack of progress.

Titchy an Wuldric - I think you are both spot on.

This thread is a bit bonkers really. There's a gap between parental expectations/beliefs and actual academic ability which is just unbridgeable. I blame GCSEs for being so flipping easy that the essential reality check has not been delivered earlier.

Meanwhile, being not-very-good at Maths isn't necessarily a hindrance, you know! Lots of us peeps who are not-very-good at Maths go on to develop good and worthwhile careers, crucially *in fields that do not require us to be good at Maths". That's the key!

Sorry 25% get level 5 at KS2!

Presumably a mid level 4 kid could also have a good day and get a 4a. Given that 25% of kids get a level 4, and the OP's ds scraped a B grade in the hardest paper I too am failing to see evidence of a natural mathematician. 25% of kids are certainly not capable of a decent grade in A Level maths (and certainly not when they're doing 4 other subjects!) and he seems to be just about top 25% but only just....

Longing, I think that the OP thinks 2 marks off a level 5 is practically a level 5. Not sure if the secondary teachers would agree with me but because it's an test it can be a bit unreliable around the level boundaries. The difference between a 4 and a 5 is 1 mark. A secure level 4 child having a good day could pick up 2 or 3 marks that take them over the boundary despite not really being a level 5. This get amplified in schools where lots of last minute cramming takes place before the tests.

Unless he had a complete panic on the day of the tests and went to pieces it sounds like he's a secure/high level 4. Would be interesting to see what his Teacher Assessment result was.

Harum - Level 4 at the end of KS2 is OK! Or rather it's 'average'. Just as something like a C at GCSE is OK/average. I don't understand why the OP didn't intervene earlier if her son was just average at maths at the end of KS2. And I don't understand why she blames his secondary school for not turning an average mathematician into a very good one by the end of KS4.

HarumScarum - the Government has just published research that shows children gaining lower level 4 at primary school do not get the top GCSE's. if children get a 4a, their chances are greatly improved. Good teaching at secondary school can make a huge difference but this is not the norm in many schools.

Perseverance and learning new skills is important but there's a difference between 'closed door thinking' and 'realism'. The more I run, the more I increase my speed and endurance but realistically however much I practice I'm not ever going to provide any sort of challenge for Usain Bolt.

Have you actually listened to any of the advice on this thread about going over the B, A, A* stuff from GCSE first or are you ploughing straight into the C1 book?

But a 'B' is a perfectly good result, and good for many courses.

A Level 4 is the standard that they'd like to get year 6s to. It's a reasonable level. It predicts reasonable GCSEs. It's just that people with reasonable GCSEs aren't the ones who want to go into higher-level, advanced maths courses/degrees.

I think there should be more opportunities for maths to be studied beyond GCSE level, in other forms than A-level. I'd like to encourage as many of my students as possible to carry on with maths. I think it's great, and I'd love more people to be really good at it and love it too. But I still wouldn't suggest that A-level is the right path for most of them, much as I wish it could be. They need other paths.

There is also a lot that I think could be done with the curriculum in earlier years, which would perhaps get a higher level of numeracy by GCSE age in more students, potentially allowing more to go on to A-level, or if not A-level, to have enough maths for other science subjects. But that's a slightly different issue.

There seems to be some confusion about Engineering degrees. The top degrees for Engineering are now 4 year MEng degrees. These enable you to go straight onto post grad training to become a Chartered Engineer. The BEng courses (3 years) do not allow this. As far as I am aware the Russell Group universities offering MEng will want maths and physics and probably further maths at grade A at A level. The lesser courses BEng may consider BTEC qualifications but I doubt this is good enough for MEng. Anyone applying for Engineering must know that there are now two levels of degree. The BEng is distinctly the poorer option and has lesser career prospects.

I sympathise, though would have been delighted with a 'B' myself bit.ly/1digmMu

The level thing is another thing that makes me feel a bit shocked. We are led to believe (those of us with children at infant or junior school) that Level 4 at the end of that is perfectly OK. And it may be OK but it's clearly not on track for an actual good result at GCSE stage.

My DD1 got an A in maths iGCSE but knew she was no mathematician. If you only have a B, you are definitely not a Mathematician. Many young people I know have maths and further maths at A and A at A level. they understand maths but interestingly found languages really hard. DD 2 has a B at iGCSE maths and would never have succeeded at A level. If he has no As at GCSE look at what his best results are and look at what his career choices might be. Look at suitable University courses, or apprenticeship requirements, and do the A levels recommended. 3 sciences are rarely needed but if he has as A in another GCSE, this could be a subject worth taking. You need to do some careers homework before deciding what to do.

I have to say that for someone who got a high level 4 in KS2, to get a mid-level B at GCSE is slightly better than the 'expected' progress. It doesn't really sound like the school failed him, as the OP seems to think.

Thanks for the info about grades. I am a little shocked, tbh.

Jella, in your shoes, I'd be looking at your son thinking about alternative career paths based on what everyone has posted. I got an A at O Level Maths many years ago and a B at A Level and then I went on to study Chemistry, which I would assume to have a similar maths component to Engineering. I found it almost impossible and gave up the course after a year. The differentiation that we were expected to grasp immediately was just so hard and I know I could have understood it if I'd really tried but the trying was more than I wanted to give to it. I later went on to do a degree in an arts subject and got an extremely good result. I think, had I wanted to and loved it enough, I could have done the maths for the Chemistry but I just couldn't put that much into it. I'm far better at Maths than most people and particularly good at algebra but it wasn't enough to make me able to grasp some of the very abstract and complicated reasoning that was required. I hope your son ends up happy but in your shoes I would not be encouraging him to continue with this career path. If a B is a bit above average, it's probably enough for him to get an A Level with some help. It's not enough for him to make a proper go of a degree in a maths-heavy subject. The jump between A Level and degree was massive twenty years ago. From what others have posted I think it might be bigger now.

It all sound like some sort of military regime. Chin up, daily maths after daily gym sessions, rest one day a week.

Is this real

In fairness to OP I think her answers to the last 3 questions have been consistently 'yes'.

Can you answer these questions:

Were you surprised that he got a B, given all the support you'd given him?
Does he want to be an engineer?
Do you think he is a talented mathematician?

If you take an apprenticeship route to engineering rather than A levels then you would typically do a BTEC L3 in engineering & then perhaps an HNC/HND and then maybe go on to complete a degree. The entry requirement is GCSE B in maths. How does this work then? As far as I can see the BTEC has two maths modules which cover a lot of A level topics (even f. maths topics in places) and some fairly mathematical mechanics/physics modules too. There are no examinations, but the work is assessed somehow (not quite sure how). Why should the entry standard for the BTEC be lower than for A level if they are both routes to a degree, or is the BTEC better at bridging the gap somehow? Also why if the BTEC covers these maths topics and some people go on to degrees from it without having maths A level do other engineering degree courses require A level maths as well as the BTEC?

You still sound like you're trying to blame schools and other people for being "doors closed" because they are saying that someone who is currently only at a B is not suited to an A-level course.

Schools and teachers are not just trying to protect league tables and ofsted ratings, but are trying to prevent someone from failing a course and needing to re-do it, switch in Yr 13, change plans at a later date, etc. They only want to be realistic. Nobody is saying that with a lot of hard work, a B-level candidate couldn't eventually learn what is needed, only that at the moment, a B-level student is not ready to go straight into an A-level class and expect to do well. And the schools don't have the resources to give the individual tuition needed to cover all the material that he has not grasped from GCSE yet, alongside the very difficult A-level stuff, particularly at a pace that would suit someone who didn't find GCSE easy. That's not being 'doors closed', it's being realistic about what can be offered with the time and resources available.

Lots of people have suggested that B-student can be good candidates for A-level if the reason they got the B was not to do with their understanding of the work. Others have suggested that even if there are understanding gaps, there are ways to bridge these and demonstrate that to the school (either by doing other courses in the interim and A-level later, or demonstrating that the weak areas have been covered by redoing GCSE or doing bridging papers/book, etc). By all means, determination and hard work are vital, and with personal tuition, that may be exactly what is needed in this case.

But it isn't a case of schools somehow willfully refusing to teach someone by rigidly sticking to pointless rules. They are being realistic about what they can offer in their courses.

I agree with you that perseverence is key to academic success and indeed to success in career terms later on.

You do seem very determined that your son should be an engineer - for which my understanding is that you have to be pretty hot at maths - whether you are a mechanical engineer, an electronics engineer, a chemical engineer or even a civil engineer.

So I ask again. Does your son share this ambition?

And the unspoken question that has been something of an elephant in the room on this thread. Does your son really have the ability to do (or do well) at A level maths?