£600 per pupil for every extra pupil studying maths in sixth form

user, your views seem slightly odd to me.

Yes, of course Core Maths is 'lighter' than a full A-level in Maths - because it is an AS-level.

It is, as i understand it, different in focus from Maths AS (DS is at a school that still does the 4 formally-taken AS-levels / 3 A-levels thing) but not a 'lesser' qualification - it just selects a different suite of skills from the 'large pool of things that could be included in a Maths curriculum'.

It's like saying Eng Lang GCSE is Englishlite, compared with English Lit. That's not true - they're just different.

I took a degree that had a Maths element throughout the first year. Did I see that course as 'Mathslite'? No, it was billed as, and was, maths for our subject - a selection of university-level Maths to specifically support the subject we studied, rather that being iof use mainly for those studying 'Maths for Maths' sake'. I understand core Maths to be similar?

Heaven forfend!!

I thought that said mathshite !

Well let's just call it mathslite!

Yes noble giraffe I do & I stand by my views thankyou.

Core maths isn't meat to be equivalent to maths. The idea is that it is a support to A level students. may centres offer it as a supplement to business studies, economics and science. I think that is made clear to students.

Re the UTCs. The ones I have worked with have very few qualified teachers and have a huge staff turnover. Students are fairly often actually students shunted over from the last chance saloon.

I have no idea how the UTCs are planning on touting their wares. All parents have already received letters outlining their existence. It certainly is destined to fail around here as students begin their third tier of education in year 9. Very few parents would then choose to uproot their children again one year later!

Piggywaspushed - very intrigued by your comment. General careers advice or more specific UTC bias?? Without compromising any confidentiality etc.

And, more generally with all these providers coming in just WHEN will the schools find the time to teach??

Hopefully we would all agree that the Core maths AS is not an equivalent to an AS in the traditional maths. Certainly young people wrestling with the (now defunct) C1/C2/applied module of the main AS maths qualification wouldn't see it as an equivalent in terms of difficulty/challenge etc.

I know I saw it! Part of my job role is 'supporting' UTCs. Nothing would make me encourage a child to go to one...

Well, if all your students already do Maths, you don't need an incentive. That's the point of an incentive! They don't pay current Maths/Physics teachers extra either (well, maybe an invented TLR3), but they do pay an incentive for new ones to train.

www.theguardian.com/education/2017/nov/23/sums-dont-add-up-on-budgets-maths-pledge-says-labour

The Guardian says the maths doesn't work!

At DS college, Maths is the single biggest subject
but its the fact that current excellence in teaching is not being recognised (only some random "extra") that gets my goat.

THere is a maths specialist school in London who will get zilch because all of their kids already do maths
talk about poorly designed incentives

PE teachers it is then Often a sprinkling in Maths and Science.

I teach 15 (out of 27) year 12 students who are doing maths with non-stem subjects, so it's not that unusual.

I certainly don't want bigger classes of pupils with lower grades. I'm working my socks off with a class of 17, who all have grade 6 or above at GCSE. If you give me a class of 20+, some of whom have grade 5, then ALL of them will get a worse experience of A level maths than they do currently.

We frequently have 0 -1 candidates for English posts. Recruiting HODs is a particular issue in English.

MFL needs to be rebuilt from primary level. We are here in New Jersey and my DC have been learning Spanish and mandarin since 3. They are in a state school (called public here). DD has started French because she is doing well with Spanish. DD is six.

I think maths is going through what MFL went through in the 90s. I struggle to help DD with her maths because of the way they teach it these days. I have an economics degree and work in finance for a fixed income desk and I struggle to understand how my 6 year old is being taught. If I am struggling I can only imagine the difficulty other parents have when they aren't strong in maths themselves.

Also, like MFL, if you want to bring about changes you need to start much earlier with children in primary and early years of secondary school. The standard of maths should be much much higher at both GCSE and A'Level. Sadly the only way to achieve these higher standards is to pay more money to hire teachers and lengthen the school day.

IME, English is nowhere near as bad as Maths and Physics. MFL, as I said, is in crisis. Still, PE always attracts a big field!

There is a recruitment crisis in English, too.... and MFL, but that will just die out.