New Maths GCSE is properly hard isn't it?

sassh I could do about 50% of those papers. But there again I've not really had cause to use the other 50% of the mathematical concepts covered since, so have no recall as to how to do them some 30 years down the line!

DS is at an indie doing igcses.

Non calculator paper from 1984 - not the board I sat as it doesn't exist any more

www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/Images/1984j-mathematics-olevel-questionpaper.pdf

My daughter's doing IGCSE maths - to be honest, the only differentiation that is on it as far as I can tell is fairly basic (polynomial); she's doing it early and it is one of the topics they left till last. Unfortunately as a result I think it has been presented in cookbook fashion - do this and this - though I may be wrong. I have gone through a basic derivation with her to make sure she understands where it comes from.

Surds I remembered doing in year 9 - not UK, and we did have 2 main levels of maths at that age - they like a number of other maths topics can easily fit in at several different levels. Actually, for able maths kids, there is a lot of interesting mathematics that is usually left to later undergraduate years but is perfectly accessible earlier, as it doesn't necessarily rely on the foundation of other skills.

Jux I did 16+ which was for more borderline pupils. I managed to pass the O Level (so I have the relevant certificate) but I think I managed to bypass the difficult stuff you're all talking about. My mental Maths is very good and I struggle to think of a situation (aside from helping the DC with their Maths) in everyday life when I've felt stumped by my lack of more complicated mathematical knowledge!

TBH, I did all those at O level in 70s. They were dropped if you were doing "New Maths" which included Venn Diagrams and matrices etc, but that was CSE I think. I know that some streams in my year did New Maths while the rest of us did the old stuff.

Differentiation, 3-d trig, factorising quadratic equations??! I'm sure I didn't do any of that at GCSE (in mid 90's).

I did all that in my GSE in the early 80's. There are only a few things I don't recognise in my son's work (he's also year 11), such as circle theorum. I also think the current syllabus is light on statistics as I seem to remember doing them in a lot more detail than my son's current papers.

Thanks noble . I think when a>1 if it is prime then it's OK, but otherwise it is a pain as too many options. I do see what you mean re the time tables and the negative numbers. One of the reasons I am doing it with DD is to get her to practice identifying factor pairs in a different way.
(Note to self, I must look up splitting coefficients as I remember you explaining it before and it looked confusing to me!)

May I ask why factorising quadratics is considered so hard?

I don’t think factorising easy quadratics is, although it needs a solid grasp of times tables which means Foundation students struggle, and they can get confused around negative numbers. Even solving by factorising is on Foundation these days, but only for the really top end.

Factorising where a>1 is bloody awful, I hate it. Some lucky people can do it just by looking and fiddling with a few numbers - I’m not one of them! I always do it by splitting coefficients. I remember when I did GCSE I always solved using the formula just because I couldn’t be arsed with factorising at all

How can state schools still be teaching IGCSE? They don’t count for the league tables and I thought they weren’t accredited any more?

Schools don’t need to teach IGCSE to teach differentiation to the most able, Further Maths GCSE and Additional Maths include it.

I think it's proper hard and really for children who are not very mathematically inclined it's a turn-off. I struggled with Maths at school, although I did pass my O Level, but I'm already finding I can't help DD (Year 7) with hers as much of what they're now doing is already stretching my own skills. I will not be able to offer her support very soon. And for a child who doesn't really see the point of the subject it's going to be a challenge to keep her engaged when I can't help her with aspects she finds hard.

I really do struggle to see the point of making it so much harder for children who are not keen or likely to pursue STEM subjects.

I was about to say IGCSE Edexcel has differentiation on it but see some others have already pointed that out.

The majority of kids at DS's superselective go on to do Maths A level and therefore they chose to do this and also at least 2/3 cohort do additional Maths at gcse too.

I'm suspicious of the "turned off b/c it's not challenging enough argument".

No one ever says "My kid got turned off of...
-shopping
-hanging out with their friends
-watching lousy movies
-staying in bed until 1pm
-fussing over the dog
... because it's so boring and never challenging enough." I don't buy it. Kids get turned off (they call this boredom) b/c they don't like the people or the atmosphere.

Differentiation in O level but not integration.

Our school harped on so much that no-one should expect to get a 9 that it made the kids work harder - bloody mindedness I think.

DD got a 9 - she started out as a low A, (low7/high6) and got a 9 because she wanted to prove the teacher wrong. Did the same in Eng lit too... language, however, was a 7 because according to her "no one needs to know what a bloody past participle is" - despite the fact she wants to teach English!!

I'm another O Level generation and yes differentiation, integration, quadratics, matrices, set theory all in the O Level.

I think they have made it harder so there is less jump to A Level.

BUT although I think everyone should have a maths qualification in my day you had O Level maths, CSE maths and CSE commercial arithmetic.

So glad sets/venn diagrams are back, you need them for computer science/computing GCSE and A Level, there should be more cross over like this with CS, physics and even things like geography.

Interesting point IIjkk I hadn't thought of it like that. DD1 and DD2 got A s and a 9 may have differentiated them from their peers but yes I hadn't thought of the extra pressure that may have added. It is not necessarily the system though, I think its the constant measurement/league tables and pressure schools and parents apply in that an 8 or (or a B in old money) is a slip up in some areas. Lots of children should be happy with an 8 (old A) but won't be - how do we fix that.

Factorising quadratics and solving quadratics have always been on GCSE and are not considered to be that challenging. They feature on the foundation paper now.

We do them with higher set Year 7 and 8s in non-selective school.

I wish DD could coast along at a firm A* level instead of being pushed-pushed-pushed reaching for a 9. I don't see the push doing her good.

Annoying too that the idea of the new harsh grade regime was thinly dressed up as "This will raise attainment on average". It won't. The same number of kids who struggle with math in past will now struggle to get a 4 rather than a C. Math-disinclined & Average ability kids won't get better, and high ability kids will just feel more stress.

It almost seems like more resources to facilitate better quality teaching rather than extra hard exams might achieve more than moving the exam goalposts. Funny that.

Difficult when they want to find a way to differentiate between the students who find maths and could sail through the previous papers. But agree much better to have a different/extra paper for the more able to access the 8 s and 9 s like the triple science used to.

I remember doing calculus at O level! Never ever used it again - I think it's fine to leave it to A level.
The level 3 additional maths is really hard and DS gave up with it.
I think the point about it putting able children off maths A level is really important. It's counter productive.

Genuine question for noble or anyone else. May I ask why factorising quadratics is considered so hard?

I have this holiday started doing them with my DD who is y8 and is less able and she is taking to them quite well. (I am doing it as a confidence boost and a flip learning.)

Or is it only harder ones where a1 or the stuff like completing the square?

(Btw I agree the new one is way harder than the old, DD1 would really have struggled with last year's paper).

I looked at the new paper and thought it seemed a fair bit easier than the O level Maths of mid 1970s that I took (got an A grade and 99% certain I got every answer correct as I finished all the papers in about 1/3 of the time allowed, blind checked all the results twice and got the same answers).