Yearly warning about taking A-level maths with a 6 at GCSE

I agree, it seems many more kids should be considering BTecs and T levels- however this is not what they are told in school. It is all about

I don't think that's the message.
I think the message is to be realistic of the likely result and think whether that would be OK for you.
If your other subjects are aimed to be As then do you want to do Maths (or whatever) if that is likely to lead to a C if you don't need maths for next steps and could more likely get an A or a B in a different subject.
If you are aiming for Ds and Es then doing maths with a 6 is more reasonable than if you want an A.

I do however think maybe more kids should be considering T-Levels / BTECs. there are still too many that seem to think A levels at all costs rather than looking at other options properly.

Thanks for an interesting thread. Reading through this, anyone who basically doesn’t have a 7 or above in à given subject basically shouldn’t be doing A levels. Is that where we are with our education system now. For the huge number of kids who don’t get 6/7 qnd above - we should be moving them out of traditional À levels. What a situation we are at then, when A levels are considered the ‘ normal’ way forward but there will be significant numbers of children we should be saying leave traditional sixth form..

for me, I find this quite depressing however our education system is so very warped with up to à third of children not getting 4 or above. They fail. Then don’t get 7 or above you fail your À levels. Honestly this system fails our children

But 6/7 students will be the life-blood of most VI Forms. Not most Mumsnet VI Forms perhaps....
Agree re the Maths however. A colleague whose timetable was half Maths, half Psychology said that the intellectual demand and independent effort required by Maths A level was incomparable with Psychology.

No it was the actual GCSE. I agree that it makes no sense. I have no idea why they do this.

I'd suggest that some of the question is how the marks are lost to be not getting the 8/9. If the issue is exam technique/arithmetical oopsies or something memory heavy in the geometry side of things that's far less of an issue than finding algebra a big struggle. A Level is really algebra heavy and builds on the algebra. You can get around issues with stats or mechanics by rote learning but algebra does need to make sense as there's too many nuances to rote learn everything required.

That said I can still remember some of the repetitive bits of school maths (quadratic equation) and soh cah toa...

Also had to learn long division during A-level, everyone who had switched from state to private had missed it as it didn't come up in GCSE then, it actually made more sense with algebra than without for me 😂

@Soporalt But grades are very different now. Maths has the highest % of A and A star. It’s not what it was in terms of a challenge. Plus the number of A grades has doubled since your day.

So according to the grade boundaries she was four marks off an 8, allthough it doesn't make much difference.

I found O level maths pretty easy when I sat it in the late 70s. Comfortable A. A level was really hard. I scraped a B with a lot of help from my proper mathematician boyfriend. The rest of my class got mostly Ds and Es. All fine then, but not when you need A*-B to get into a good university course.

That said, anyone who can do well in it is likely to find it beneficial on their CV later.

Quite few in DC’s class got a B upwards and had 7 or 8 at GCSE (mine included). They did “that” Edexcel maths paper this year and non iGCSE maths.

The AMSP have transition to A level resources for consolidation and readiness, for students in the same position as your ds.

https://amsp.org.uk/teachers/11-16-maths/transition-to-level-3-maths/essential-skills/

I think kids who have sat Maths iGCSEs and got a 7 might find Maths A-level easier than those who just sat Maths GCSE because iGCSE Maths contains some A-level content.

I still wouldn't risk it though after this year's crazy Edexcel Maths A-level paper!

I have just given her some A Level maths algebraic questions and some hidden quadratic ones (I literally have no idea what they are, or what the questions asked - both my children got into grammars on merit, as I couldn't afford tutors, and am so RUBBISH at maths that I was as useful as a chocolate teapot), she was able to do them immediately and without hesitation, trying to explain the algebraic stuff to me (and she may as well have spoken Spanish as I didn't have a clue), so she understands this stuff, but I am still worried, especially with all the cautionary tales.

Ultimately though, it is her decision, I tried to steer her to other options yesterday, but she refused.

My daughter's friend easily flew through GCSE Maths with 96% and an easy 9. She also got 9 in Further Maths. Even she found A-level Maths extremely hard and came out with a very hard-fought A.

@Anonymousemouses We got the stupidly expensive graphical calculator via school for around £88 last year as Casio will sell to school at a heavily reduced price. Worth asking. You should be able to get 20% off if you do have to buy one retail as a back to school discount.

Was the Further Maths an internal exam or did she do the real exam? I can’t understand why a school would enter pupils for FM in advance of GCSE when this builds and is beyond GCSE. If she has grade 6 a year early and predicted 8/9 then A-level sounds a good prospect.

I really don't know why she doesn't like it, she just refused it. I think that because she already has two essay heavy subjects, plus an EPQ extension that is essay based, she didn't want a third.

I don't really understand why you are freaking out. The worst that can happen is that she realises it's not for her after all and she switches to a different subject. It is a shame that they couldn't accommodate her choices though. Out of curiosity, why does she dislike RS? I was going to suggest it. :-)

This is really interesting. My daughter is just going into Year 11 and is predicted an 8/9 at GCSE. She’s had a very poor teacher this year but managed to get a grade 6 in her GCSE Further Maths this year one year early. Interestingly one set of revision sessions were with a different teacher and she understood all of that material easily. I assumed she would be a good candidate for A Level but does the Further Maths grade bode badly for coping at A Level?

@noblegiraffe Thank you, I will wait till she starts in case she changes.

Is it hopeless her doing maths A Level? As I said above, it was one of her choices originally, then she got the shock 5 in the mock, but the teacher wasn't concerned and said she was more than capable of doing maths A Level, but I was nervous, so was DD, so she changed.

Then she got the 7 yesterday, not really tons of revising, and she did amazing in the past papers, really amazing, but clearly not good enough.

I don't want to knock her confidence, she is REALLY happy with her choice, she sees positives in it and has always been in the top set, even at grammar.

But as everyone else says you need an 9 or at least an 8, then I worry about her with a 7.

@noblegiraffe sorry yes I meant the graphical calculator.

Not sure what you mean by raising the % cut offs?

It's not really reasonable to compare tbh. I was joking about my A grades at O level. In the early 90s an A was the top GCSE grade. I think it was felt that there needed to be a higher grade to differentiate. So that A grade would have included (broadly - but as I say you cannot really compare) today's 7-8-9 grades.

One reason why comparisons are not helpful is that the old GCSEs included a lot of coursework which supported some students (and not others! I prefer an exam). It was also open to abuse unfortunately.

I don’t really understand why they didn’t just raise the % cut offs but thank you for the explanation. So was an A in the 90s harder to get than a 7 today?

My DS has just done a level maths and further maths (A/* and an A) and did not use one of the expensive calculators. So they are not critical and I wouldn't be buying it if there is a risk that your DC won't continue with it.