Further Maths at GCSE

Although she intended to drop it DD has been persuaded to keep going with Add Maths for the reasons given by Noble above; the GCSE syllabus was completed in Y10.

Also, last year was the first year the school sat Edexcel GCSE maths and apparently the boundaries were very low and nearly half the year got 9s. The Maths dept are now advising anyone who didn't get a high 9 to think carefully about taking maths as an A level. Previously it was A* to do A level which should be an 8 or a 9. I don't know what the boundary was last year but I hope high 9 leaves some wiggle room for doing something stupid in the exam. If not at least a strong Add maths result will help.

Additional maths is a level 3 qualification - ie a step up from GCSE. It's designed for very able students who are ready for an introduction to A level type work :
www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/fsmq/additional-mathematics-6993/

Further maths is an additional GCSE aimed at able mathematicians, but is still a level 2 qualification:
www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/mathematics/aqa-certificate/further-mathematics-8360/why-choose

It's unlikely your school will offer both, as they are completely different courses.

Dd says Add Maths does not cover matrices and is one paper ( calculator) FM does and is 2 papers ( one calculator, one non) . At least was in 2017.

My dd also found Add Maths very helpful for A level Maths. Further Maths isn't offered at our school.

Does anyone know the difference between Add Maths and Further Maths at GCSE?

If they're going for a further maths qualification, then better to do additional maths. Dd1 said that it was very quickly clear who had done ad maths when she started A-level but not who'd done further.

It does cover some stuff which is on A-level so helps bridge the gap but isn’t as necessary as before as the new GCSE has been beefed up (although still doesn’t have calculus).

I’ve got some kids in my top set Y11 who have basically finished the GCSE syllabus and will get 8s and 9s in their mocks before Christmas so they’ll be doing further maths otherwise they’ll be bored doing revision of stuff they’ve already mastered between now and May. The other kids in the group will need that revision time and will be focusing on getting a higher grade at GCSE.

If he is likely to do Maths A level and has the option to do it then he should. Ot keeps the brain operating mathematically and does actually feed into A level work that will be re-covered at A level. My ds didn't do it but everyone else in his Maths A level did so subsequently they sped through somè stuff that he would have preferred to have spent a bit longer on because the basics had been covered in FM

Dd did both Add Maths and Further Maths. She says there is a lot of overlap between them. If only FM is on offer you have to really want to do extra and spend time on it. She says it is particularly worthwhile if you plan to take Maths and/or Sciences at A level, as the Pure Maths gives a head-start and good basis for carrying on.

Our school offers Additional Maths (ocr) in year 11 in addition to GCSE Maths and it seems a good bridge between GCSE and A level Maths. Not sure about Further Maths though?