Rant about the new maths GCSEs. Michael Gove you tosser.

The evidence that China and S Korea produces far more academically kids is hugely flawed - huge swathes of the population are conveniently ignored when they compile the data, which is universally restricted to the big cities with majority middle class high earning parents.

Do folk REALLY believe your average farming kid in rural China is supremely better at maths that the UK, despite them probably only have ever had 3 years of formal schooling?

It is also important to remember that the education system in countries like China and South Korea produces people who are unable to think for themselves. OH has worked in both countries and still works with companies based there, and is so frustrated at the lack of initiative even by management. They have to be told what to do all the time.

DD is in yr 10 and studying for the two Welsh maths GCSEs, plus I have friends with dc in yr 11. Obviously only time will tell as to how exams will go, but dd is enjoying maths and I haven't heard about anyone being particularly more stressed about maths GCSE than any of the others.

The first pupils to take the new exams were last November, results here were lower overall than for the old single GCSE, but I think the belief is that this was largely down to schools putting pupils in early to try to get a handle on how the exam worked.

Gove can raise expectations all he likes, but while there is dire shortage of maths teachers, maths won't be taught properly.

Yy and meanwhile good maths teachers are leaving the profession because Gove (and other education secretaries to be fair) have made it such an awful place to work. It really is like deliberate sabotage.

It's also important to remember that a significant number of children in places like Korea leave school early or don't go to school at all. It's not comparing like with like.

Like a few other PP I am curious to know whether other countries have a similar number of students who struggle to access maths. Not looking at the extreme methods of Korea or China, but what about Finland, which is often cited as having one of the best education systems in the world? I seem to remember reading, that although they have much shorter school days than England they spend more hours teaching maths than us. They also don't set or stream, so it would be interesting to see how many children "fail" maths there.

My school only set in Maths but everyone was expected to sit O-levels not CSEs. But the lower set sat Commercial Maths paper whilst the remaining sets sat a General Maths paper.

I also have it in my head that when I was at school the average grade (not just in Maths) was level 4 CSE and the lowest grade you could get was level 5, so many students were obviously leaving school with nothing or very little So standards had to be raised and schools/teachers had to be held accountable (e.g. to prevent children being taught the incorrect syllabus 2 years on the trot as PP mentioned above) But as with everything it has got out of hand and appears to have gone to the other extreme.

It's worth mentioning that Functional Maths got harder from Sept 15. Prior to that I could pretty much guarantee getting someone with a good attitude, reasonable English and a respectable D to Level 2 (equivalent to C or above) with one or two days' intensive preparation.
Now I run separate 3 day courses for weaker and stronger learners, provide a range of other options from half day bespoke sessions to four day courses with paper based rather than online exams and look very carefully at initial and diagnostic assessments in both Maths and English when deciding on which option to take. (Anyone below L2 in English may have difficulty interpreting the questions.). I also take age into account - a 27 yo will do much better than a 17 yo in understanding the contexts in which questions are set.
(I'm retired secondary now teaching in FE.)

The world of I levels was very different. Lots of people left school with no qualifications at all-and were able to get jobs. O level marking was pretty arbitrary, and it didn't cross anyone's mind to query it. I really is no use comparing.

carol: I do not know the detail.

Read this thread then. State schools have to do the exams preferred by their funders - the state, so GCSEs.

Private schools also do the exams preferred by their funders - parents, and iGSCEs.

Double would make sense. Functional maths plus additional? Than add further for a triple , like Science does?

buy the government might solve the problem. I see us making Gove do continuously harder Maths papers whilst telling him he's below average...

I read and scribed for a Higher Maths paper last week. In previous years I've worked out answers in my head as we go and mentally cope with most of them without the luxury of pen and paper

That really shows that something needed to change, not that I agree with the changes that have been made.

but why is it that children in most other countries in the world can do this level of maths and ours can't. is it teaching, is it a societal attitude to maths .Before we can remedy this we need to try to establish the reason.

Children in Korea spend 9-3pm in school, then go to a crammer school until 10pm then often to the library until 12pm.

In effect they do three times the hours of British children. So compare a British person with 15 years post 11 education with a Korean with 5 years post 11 education.

Way back in the days of O Levels, CSEs and 50% of students leaving school with no qualifications there was an arithmetic CSE, it might have been called 'commercial arithmetic' or 'business arithmetic', it basically taught you how to give the correct change in a shop and how to multiply the number of boxes i a store room.

It was similar to the level 2 numeracy papers, and IMHO that's what we need. Employers look at grade C GCSE maths and think arithmetic, they don't think simultaneous equations and trig.

I agree that the curriculum needed revising at the top end, to bridge the gap between GCSE and A-level. But this did not need to be at the expense of the entire lower 50%+ - and also many of the more able, whose confidence has been badly affected.

There was once a suggestion that Maths could introduce a double award paper - for the more able and as preparation for those going onto A level maths. Plus the single award still. This seemed an eminently sensible idea. I asked what had happened to it and Noble told me that Gove had scrapped that plan. Now he's introduced this mess, and having made such a mess, had to be moved elsewhere. Leaving our young people to suffer from his mess!

For the last few years results days news has been full of people getting 10 A*s , these students have been brainwashed to see that's what to aim for rather than what they can achieve. A decent school works against this and makes them realistic but the next few years will be difficult to make the psychological leap to 'actually a 6/7 is good' or 'excellent I never thought I'd get that 4' . In the meantime we are risking a group of students thinking they are worthless.

It was just a whole different world back when I did O levels in the 80s. No predicted or target grades, as pp says no revision sessions etc etc. You went to class, did your homework, and got what you got at the end of the process

Did mine in the 70s - it was like this.

BUT we as kids seemed more personally invested - the marks didn't matter for the teachers, but for us they were a way out of home - only 12% went on to uni, another 15% to tech college.

For the month before exams we all turned into pasty-white hermits.

Buses what you describe is what Gove took away. It's all about progress 8 now - no more college courses doing mechanics or beauty as they don't count

I think there's a conversation to be had about an education system where someone feels "stupid and thick" if they aren't going to get the absolute top grade. We set up expectations in them- nothing but As will do- then create a system where only 2% will get 9s. And you can tell them til you are blue in the face that an 8 is the new A- but while there is still a grade above they won't believe you.

My dd got A* French GCSE in 2014. She switched schools for 6th form. After a term she gave up A'Level French because her classmates were so much further ahead she couldn't keep up. They had all done IGCE.

Standards are being raised. Some children aren't academic and perhaps shouldn't be doing GCSE' s. It's a reflection of reality and I am tired of interviewing entry level candidates who often have soft subject masters degrees who cannot write nicely or punctuate or work out a percentage, a fractional salary, some pro-rated annual leave, etc. I can interview 12 and one is employable. It is utterly shocking. I could do that at 16/18.

Carol, state schools get their funding from the government, and therefore have to do government-funded qualifications.

IGCSE history on this is:
Initially IGCSEs weren't funded so state schools didn't sit them
They got a reputation for being harder so Gove decided they should be available to state schools and funded them (sort of- I'm skating over the detail)
Then Gove decided to fuck up the whole exam system to score points with the Daily Mail create a new exam system
He realised that his new exams would be extremely unpopular so he took the IGCSE funding away from state schools again so that they'd have no choice but to sit the new 9-1 exams.

My prediction for the future: private schools will also migrate over to the new exams because in a few years' time they'll probably be more prestigious for the high achievers. But they are (I think? I'm out of touch) wisely waiting till the dust settles and sticking with IGCSE in the meantime.

It's the same for DS. He was top set for maths, passed 11 plus, in grammar going well, but these changes... well he feels stupid and thick. Crap at maths. His words.

Surely kids don't go to school to feel stupid? How can you enjoy a subject, then hate it?

Too much stress. Too much homework. Teachers leaving in their droves according to DS.

Such a mess.

"I do not know the detail"

You don't even know the broad brush!