Are we heading for maths resit GCSE? ,

My daughter didnt understand maths at school, I spoke to the school and in the end was quite persistent with asking for another maths teacher. She is now top of the class.

I havent read all the thread but have you spoken to school if 2 is the average in the class?

Good advice upthread re using own calculator. I invigilate maths retakes at a tertiary college. Every year I have students who do not bring a calculator and then struggle to use the one we give them.

Before you do it, let him look through himself, maybe the tutor can indicate questions where he has lost marks because of carelessness, and then see if he can see them himself. If he finds his own errors he is less likely to repeat them.

Did the tutor, or you, go through the mock papers with him? It's worth lloking where the OMG marks were lost, as I used to call them, misreads, not simplifying an answer, eg 3/6 left instead of 1/2, a straight line not drawn with a ruler, graph points carelessly plotted. I'm currently marking non calc papers and I find myself muttering things at this anonymous child like bloody idiot where they've lost marks for reasons like these, in some cases it's been up to 5 on the paper.
Find out his strengths, he will have some whatever he says, then look where he seems to know what to do but gets lost part way through, they're the things to practice.
Since the removal of coursework, there are now unstructured questions and they can be very hard. Whereas long questions had part a, part b, part c leading to part d, the answer, now they're not led through at all.

That's a very valid point. Some certainly will. But unless things have changed since I last looked in detail (admittedly a few years ago) there are also some that require a 4+. Or higher actually. So I guess I was saying that it's another reason to aim for the grade.

I agree btw @Thereisalwayshope81 that a student working at 5-5 in science should be capable of 4 in maths - so that's a real positive, suggesting it's about practice abd exam technique. And a working calculator.

Just to correct a misconception: apprenticeships do take those without grade 4s but 16-18 year olds then have to do Functional Skills in English/Maths alongside the apprenticeship work.

Your child needs to realize that if they are weak in something, they need to put some effort in to change that! You are encouraging and throwing money at it but they are not doing their bit and that indicates a shoddy and immature attitude towards learning.

Says someone who was terrible at maths and worked her ass off to pass it.

Wrong/broken calculator really messes up your maths in the calculator paper.

they’ll give you really hard numbers expecting you to use the calculator. If your dc didn’t have calculator access in the calculator paper I’m not surprised they only got a few marks.

most schools have a few spare to lend out during mocks (or the real thing but at my school we try very very hard to make sure they’ve got one before it gets to that point).

get her the school calculator. If she’s the sort to lose things then most maths teachers will look after it for her (it’s only normally needed in maths or science lessons) O used to have a drawer in my desk for them,

get her to write her name on it in sharpie and tip ex.

if she got a 5 in science her maths can’t be that bad.

Did you get his mock papers back?

I think it sounds like something else went wrong - getting 32 marks on paper 1 and only 5 marks on paper 2 is a much bigger difference than usual especially when paper 2 has a calculator.

More than 5 marks would be available on paper 2 for really basic questions that he's have learned in primary school and would likely be able to do if he can get almost half of paper 1 right. It sounds like some combination of panic, low confidence and giving up, just not answering questions, etc, rather than actual inability to get more than 5 marks.

So I think that's where to start - get his paper back and actually see what went wrong, and then you can work out how to address it. Some schools just give an analysis of which questions were right/partly right/wrong, but that isn't going to help here - his might say things like he got a question on addition wrong, but you have no idea from that whether it is that he didn't try to add, didn't use a calculator, made copying errors, didn't answer it at all, etc., and you need to know that before you spend time practising adding, for example. It sounds like he needs to work on confidence, strategy, not giving up, making sure he's read the question carefully etc

The maths genie site has practice papers that are split in half, into 45 minute papers, and those can be useful for children who find the full paper overwhelming to even start.

But I'd imagine that if he can get 32 marks on the first paper, he should be able to get relatively similar on the others, and that's a very different prospect - in 2025 (edexcel), he'd have needed approximately 48/80 on each paper to get a 4 overall, and while that's still a way to go, it's not as insurmountable as his current marks might first appear.

I’m a maths tutor, and there definitely is a future if you don’t pass. Life is easier if you have GCSE English and Maths, and a resit is a great option. Every resit student I’ve taught has passed second time - but just in case they don’t I always make parents aware of other options like functional skills. I work in Scotland now, so it’s a bit different but please don’t let mumsnet (where every child is apparently oxbridge bound and in the top percentile for height) make you think a resit is the end of the world.

If he does have to resit I would look at some additional things outside the actual maths skills:

• exam technique - timing, doing the easy questions first, checking your work ect.
• revision tactics - find out what works for him, how long can he actually study for in one go and retain information? For me it’s 40 min chunks and then a short break, but DH can only focus for 20.
• his confidence will be knocked, so work on rebuilding that. Even grade 9 students have had wobbles and ended up having to resist.

Well with that attitude 😂😂😂😂😂

I would have a look at Functional Skills L2, which can be taken online at any time.

Usually the post-16 setting will organise resits. What is the plan? I imagine a college course or apprenticeship rather than A levels with grades of 4/5.

Apprenticeship as I say will probably require the grade 4+ in maths. College will be fine tho. No charge for resits. I cannot stress enough what a pain it is for DC to resit something they didn’t like at school. Agree the will to pass needs to come from them though.

My son went from a 3 to a 6, I worked with the tutor and learnt alongside him. We concentrated on getting the easy bits right. Used Corbett Maths - 5 questions every night to reinforce. I felt like I had to learn the methods so I could support him. Rewards for practice were key - gone onto uni and now talking about doing accountancy exams! Good luck

Can you commit to doing the maths GCSE at the same time? Lead by example and all that. Especially if you’re an accountant.

Good luck. Mine both went onto uni after the resits.

I passed mine as an adult (took me 4 yrs to pass lol)