New Maths GCSE - Urgent Call For Advice

How did your meeting go op? Are things any clearer?

I emailed the head of maths today, no reply so far. Dd came home and said that they are reviewing the marks of children in set 3 in order to further sub-divide the group.

Also asked what else we can do at home to maximise dd learning. Not sure a tutor will work for us as not based in the UK.

We will see.

Others, like Birmingham don't require maths A-level, but require a B at maths GCSE.

And students arriving in courses that don't require A Level maths but where most applicants in fact have it usually have to do an A Level standard maths course as a compulsory part of the first year. Such courses have a high failure rate. If you couldn't cope with A Level maths, doing work of a similar standard at a much faster pace in a university environment is not a recipe for an easy life.

I'd be interested to know how the meeting with the maths department went.

Having just had a look at the entry requirements for computer science for various universities, the top ones require maths A-level (which would not be possible for the OP's DD on current predicted grade regardless of tier of entry). Others, like Birmingham don't require maths A-level, but require a B at maths GCSE. I suspect that they would want higher than a 5, which is a low B, so also out for the OP's DD.

I agree the major issue is that the OP's DD isn't currently headed for a good enough maths grade, regardless of tier of entry. If she is good at sciences, then perhaps hiring a tutor, or doing a lot of work at home would help get her maths up to the same level?

the problem is the C

To clarify that: schools that get decent numbers of pupils with decent grades at A2 tend to insist on an A at GCSE for maths A Level and and A* if you want to do Further Maths.

Some schools allow people to take A Level maths with a B at GCSE, but that tends to be (again, ng is the expert) the politics of the school overriding both the teachers and the data, and the outcomes for students with Bs are not great (didn't ng once say that the modal outcome for students with a B at GCSE was a U at AS, or am I mis-remembering?)

Being able to do A Level maths with a C at GCSE is unheard of.

How this will map to the new grades is an unknown, but whether 4/5 maps to B or C is slightly besides the point: students likely to get "top tier uni" STEM A Level grades will be doing A Level maths and getting an A or at the very least a B, and doing that with anything other than very good GCSE results is extremely difficult now. The new GCSE won't change the basic principle, which is if you can't easily get high grades at GCSE, A Level is going to be a stretch.

Am anxious that doing the Foundation exam may adversely impact her chances at the top tier uni's - particularly if she chooses to take science based studies like computing

No-one knows the details yet, and noblegiraffe is the expert, but (a) historically the outcomes for people taking A Level maths from Foundation GCSE are appalling and that is unlikely to get better and (b) A Level maths is required for the majority of STEM courses in selective universities and the direction of travel is for that to become more, not less, the case. But people with a C at GCSE maths in Higher Tier equally have poor prospects at A Level, because (i) GCSE maths really shouldn't be hard if you're of A Level standard and (ii) it's possible to get a C at GCSE currently without studying the full syllabus or at least the full range of questions.

Someone who wants to do STEM at a selective university should be performing well at GCSE-standard maths without too much effort and if they aren't, the question of whether they get a C from the Foundation or the Higher tier is something of a second-order problem; the problem is the C, not the tier.

The government has said that the resit requirement, where students have to resit English and Maths in sixth form if they don't pass their GCSE will be set at a 4, for at least the first two years of the changes, with an aim to set it at a 5 later on, but that a 5 will be seen as the 'good pass' from the start.

If a C is a good enough standard for current courses, then surely a 4 would be good enough too? At least in the changeover period they wouldn't want to restrict their pool of candidates. I don't know though!

Thanks Noble it does seem a little clearer.

This must be a hard Change for teachers to get their heads round.

Do feel sad dd, I think she feels the rug has been pulled from under her as she has effectively been told today that she will be aiming for a 4/5 but if it's a 4 that it won't count as a "good" pass. Do you know if 6th forms will look for a 4 or a 5 as entrance onto A level courses?

Feeling guilty as I had no idea about this change and had not had any comms from school. Really caught me on the hop.

A low level 6 at the end of Y9 would statistically mean she would be likely to get a C at GCSE, so probably in the same position as my group.

We really can't say which paper would give a student the best chance of getting a grade 5. Even on the current GCSE which is well established, it's not straightforward to decide which paper to enter a student for, but we have no idea about grade boundaries for the new papers.

We know that the proportion of students getting a 4 and above will be set at the current proportion of students getting a C and above, and that's it. The grade boundaries won't be set until the students have sat the exam.

They will enter her for the one which has the very best chance of the highest grade possible.

Sorry for the hijack Geasley

Dd is very down about the whole thing and saying she won't get into uni if she has to do the foundation exam after reading the thread I beginning to think she might have a point
Really doesn't sound like she is likely to be moved up at any point with all the changes to the syllabus.

Edexcel English has a higher and foundation tier.

Really glad to have found this thread. Dd has come home very indignant.
She has been place in set three out of six and told she will be entered into the foundation tier. Is not going to be harder for her to aim for a 5 in the lower set? Dd is also very science focused and is in top set triple science
but very anxious when it comes to what she sees as "maths"
Feel really confused by all this as it seems to be moving the goal post for children regarding the concept that a grade c or higher is a matriculating pass.
Dd end of year 9 level was a 6c if it makes any difference.

Aqa haven't had foundation and higher for a few years - don't know how long.

Yes millymolly it will be apparently be harder to achieve higher grades (no doubt the teachers will be at fault).

Did English lit and Lang ever have foundation and higher? I think schools that have done Maths iGcse will not find the new curriculum quite so challenging. My DDs did topics that my DH did for A level many moons ago! Some A level topics are now in the GCSE I understand hence the grades are more difficult to achieve. It will make life a lot more difficult for children who struggle.

Iguana - is that new, that English doesn't have tiers?

Last year, my DS was certainly not allowed to do Physics A level with an A in Physics but C in higher paper Maths. I know that may simply be his college but the extremely poor AS results of his mates (who were slightly higher scoring at GCSE) and allowed to do Physics and Computing A level did prove the college right.

English doesn't have foundation and higher.

Noble - thanks for that detailed reply. It makes sense when you put it like that.

I wonder if English will go the same way? With pupils having to do foundation instead of higher.

I should also point out that current higher tier maths covers material down to a D grade. The new one will only cover down to a 4, which is C grade.

There is a danger of students who would have been a C grade dropping off the bottom and getting a U where they had a buffer on old higher.

There's more maths content in the new science a levels that have come in this September. If she doesn't do the higher tier paper I'd be very surprised if a she'd be accepted to do physics or chemistry A level.

I can state with near certainty that no sixth form would take a foundation student for A level maths. Most students with grades below an A do really badly.

How do you think she would get on with a tutor? If she really is keen on science a levels having done foundation maths will be a big problem.

Yes a middle set (well a middling set, we have more than 3). Last year this set at GCSE got Cs and a couple of Ds on higher.

I spent quite a bit of time in July looking through the new sample assessment materials (which were only released by the exam boards shortly before the end of term). They are hard. Up until then we didn't have any real idea of the level of expected difficulty because Ofqual were conducting an investigation, so this set started the GCSE course working through the higher tier.

The new Foundation covers content which makes it more like the old Intermediate Tier, but on top of that the questions are more challenging. The students are asked to give wordy answers criticising statements, justifying their answers and so on, so we need to go back and teach familiar content differently.

This class has got quite a few anxious girls in it. The higher tier paper is now so difficult that it may well cause them to fall apart.

These students are unprepared for the new style of paper. It may well be in a few years time when the changes are embedded lower down the school that this set might revert to higher, but for this year group and this class, I think coping with the new material on Foundation (they'll be doing trig, for example, and not asked in a straightforward way), and the new style of questions, they've got more than enough work to do over the next couple of years.

I do think that the grade boundaries will be through the floor first time around, and it may turn out that it's 'easy' to get a 4/5 on higher, but we just don't know. Like I said, with this class I don't want to risk it.

Shouldn't OP really talk to 6th form & ask about the chances of the girl doing A-level math, which goes with computing & sciences, if she only got 5/9 in new GCSE?

I think that's the important pinch point.

Noble - can you saw why have you decided to enter them for foundation instead of higher? And who are we talking about - a middle set?

They will probably be advised on here to tell you to immediately change.

No one really knows what the effect will be of these new GCSEs, I expect that RG universities won't have even started thinking about it yet as it will be 4 years until they get kids who have sat them.

The new 'pass' grade will be set at a 5 which (it is said) will be equivalent to a low B on the old GCSE. This will be the maximum grade available on the Foundation paper.

If your DD wants to do computing or sciences at A-level then some schools (mine does) currently require a B at GCSE maths. Whether we would accept a 5 on Foundation as good enough for e.g. computing A-level will certainly be up for debate when the time comes, and the answer may well be 'no'. When maths had the old Intermediate tier, we would accept a B at Higher for A-level, but not a B at Intermediate. It would, in that case, be better to sit the higher paper and get a 5, than foundation.

It's hard to know whether those 'B's she got before the summer mean that she was on track to get a B at GCSE as schools use different systems of assessment.
If she is of the sort of level that under the old system was expected to get a B, then I think she should be starting on Higher under the new system, then dropping to Foundation later if it turns out to be too difficult.

It's a tough call though. I've just decided that my Y10s who would have been entered for higher last year will be entered for foundation. I think I'm going to have to do a lot of reassuring of parents.