Bits of news on the grammar school issue

No, it's not an all boys' school, it's mixed ability and very arty and so the science /maths obsession is not as severe as in the high-performing comp I work in.

Yes, it's a real shame about FM in state schools, Noble. Many, of course, have never offered it. Ours will continue to do so, but is very large and sought after, with a strong reputation for maths.

That schools are cutting further maths due to budget cuts and the lack of AS is a huge fail on the part of the government.

Dangling, again, I can't link to the article but lots of state schools are not offering further Maths this year, owing to lack of numbers and budget cuts ,so they're fortunate they can at that school.

But , I see your DS's school is private, so am guessing group sizes are quite small, anyway, and, if it's a boys' school, it's probably not all that surprising : gender attitudes are still rather engrained...

Ds said he thinks more students in his year have chosen Further Maths than English A level.

Erm...cachet.

Definitely true that maths and sciences have way more cache than arts subjects now. In "my day" the clever kids took English, history and a language. We had three English A levels classes at my sixth form, two history and only one for maths and each of the sciences.

At ds's slightly smaller, independent (but very 'all-round', arty/musical) school, there are only going to be two classes next year for maths, physics and chemistry. The rest are all one class.

I think it's mostly parental pressure. At the high-performing state school I work in, parents of clever kids won't let them consider double science, or art or music GCSE, or English A level. They have to take all maths and science subjects. Some are even anti reading for pleasure...

Very true Bertrand - when we had specialist schools ,there never were ones for English. There was languages, if I recall.

It is interesting that in real life and on Mumsnet, "clever" has come to mean "good at maths".

You never get threads about "my child is brilliant at English-they need to be at a specialist school".....

Yes, I think we almost certainly are : the clever ones at my school almost exclusively do maths and sciences (especially physics and chemistry). There is till decent uptake for Lit and history - but they do tend to be much wider ability spreads. MFL is dead in the water.

In my day, the most academic (this was Scotland so very traditional) either did the Arts to be encouraged to pursue Law or sciences to go into medicine. And it was pretty a 60:40 split.

With the push to only offer 3 subjects to nearly all A level students now, too, I think we will see the end of scientists who complement their three science A levels with something like a language or English or music etc.

How far have we come since CP Snow's The Two Cultures?

His criticism was that the study of humanities and subjects like Latin were prized over the study of the sciences. Are we swinging the other way?

'good job' = high pay, discuss...

I do suspect my DS may not have got into a grammar school to come back to the original topic and, if they existed round here would by now be even less work motivated than he is now by his distinctly below par comp.

I agree with most of what you say and am married to a maths teacher...

But I teach a 'woolly ' subject which has just been made so hard a university professor called it a three year degree in two years...

And it may not produce high paid people but feeds into one of the UK's biggest and most dynamic industries.

(I am encouraging my DS to do subjects he likes fwiw : maths is on a longlist)

There I go with tow again ....

Pergrina - on Pointless, people roll their eyes and play dumb at tow things : Geography (it seems OK not to know where anywhere is) and literature, where it seems it is hilarious never to have read a book.

To be fair, they don't have maths rounds, but science always produces positive excitement!

I have actually also noticed this on UC this year : but that is probably because the teams are often loaded with physicists! not that I am saying physicists don't read

Noble, I am, believe me! Hi school has a 'take 4 to AS, then do A-level' thing, so I am working on him to at least consider moving to it as his '4th' subject.

Lots of students are now motivated by future earnings (and sensibly so!). If they're going to fork out thousands for uni they want a good job at the end. Lots of bright kids are also choosing apprenticeships over uni post-A-level, especially for things like engineering or accountancy.

I did see a blog post about recruiting A-level students for woolier subjects against this backdrop, competing against more lucrative subjects, but I can't remember what it said!

... and I am not sure how motivating things by future earnings means we'll recruit more into maths teaching, if they only did their A level in maths so they could be a banker...?

I've always thought the earnings thing recruits the wrong kind of student.

Ah Noble - that's because I am motivated by higher things than future earnings!

Talk him around, can't! That's ridiculous!

As I have said before, DS - Level 6 at the end of primary, in a school where SATs were extremely low key so no specific training for that, progressed through to the second level of the Maths Challenge this year with a high Gold into the Kangaroo, always been a good mathematician - has decided not to do Maths A-level on the basis that his mocks were graded very low and he felt that he would do better in other subjects.

They seemed like sensible proposals. What happened to them?

Michael Gove and the total reform of the whole GCSE system.

The double maths linked pair GCSE (one in more functional maths and one in more pure maths) was piloted for a few years (hey Gove, did you know you can pilot new GCSEs to see if they work before rolling them out across the nation?) but the initiative was started by Labour which was probably the kiss of death for it.

It was agreed that there was enough content in maths GCSE for about two GCSEs, but instead of making it two GCSEs they just said it would be double-weighted in the league tables

I recall you talking some time ago noble about various initiatives to enhance the mathematical education on offer. There was something about a double award, which would be seen as a better preparation for A level, and another course in 'functional maths' for those who needed mathematical competence, (which is most people) but weren't going to study maths at a higher level. They seemed like sensible proposals. What happened to them?

I despair always - it's acceptable for people to say they were or are no good at maths. They wouldn't dream of saying that they found reading difficult.

I can't understand why some people wouldn't want to take maths A-level

Maths A-level is the only subject which has been shown to be associated with an increase in future earnings.

There has been a lot of research that has shown consistently that more people need to take more maths post-16 than currently do. We're one of only a few countries where maths post-16 isn't compulsory. The Smith Report into compulsory post-16 maths provision that was supposed to be released in December has apparently disappeared, along with the responses to the Ebacc consultation which are now over a year overdue.

Personally, I can never understand why so many students want to take A level maths ! But I guess that does illustrate that various initiatives and policies over the years have worked... and it all looks set to have been a waste of time...