Largest ever up-tick in GCSE maths standards?

A young relative got 100% in his Maths GCSE this year. I wonder how many students achieve this.

In the 60s, my Mum would send us to the shop at the bottom of the road to buy bits. This was in the pre-decimal days. Kids were expected to be able to do pounds, shillings and pence sums in their head. After she saw the owners dog "George" piss on the potato sack, we didn't shop there any more, and the next shop was too far away to send children to.

Proof by exhaustion.

Q6.
2n2 = 40 - m2
2n2 + m2 = 40
let n = 1, you don't get a square for m^2, 38
let n= 2; you don't get a square for m^2, 32
let n = 3, you don't get a square for m^2, 22
let n = 4, you don't get a square for m^2, 8
let n= 5 or more negative result and m^2 can't be negative

I think the question is wrong

Back in what day? The day you've made up in your head?

Are you looking at the first few questions on a foundation paper?

Look at the higher paper, as they are the only ones that can get 9,8,7,6 grades and look past the first few questions.

q6. Should it read The nth term of a sequence is 2n^2 + 1?

I think you need to do the Maths. How many year 11 students are hanging out at bus stations vs how many are attending local schools. You would probably find they aren't year 11s and if they are its about 4

If I was doing it, I would answer the questions I could do as fast as I could leaving me more time for the harder ones. I am old, I am sure a mentally alert 15-year-old could tip through the higher paper.

Link to National Reference Test data
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-national-reference-test-in-2026/national-reference-test-results-digest-2026-accessible

I think that the government actually means that a greater percentage of pupils performed at grade 7+ this year, not merely a number of pupils.

The national reference tests showed an improved performance in the year group at the higher end. It's still not as high as 2020 (NOTE this is not due to covid grading but a genuine peak in performance as pupils sat the NRT in March before schools closed for covid). Performance then went down after schools closed and is now improving again, but only at the top end. 4+ and 5+ levels have been pretty stable.

To add to my example, students got 90 minutes to answer 25 questions, so 3.6 minutes per question on average, (using the mean).

The old O level was not taken by lower ability children, they did CSE instead

Good point. Or, possibly, RSA Arithmetic.

I don't see what is wrong with that question, it's from a foundation paper, I had to write it down, as my mental maths is a bit rusty. Remember nearly all children sit GSCE maths ( at foundation or higher) if a child is operating at the bottom end do you want them not to be able to answer any questions at all?
The old O level was not taken by lower ability children, they did CSE instead

Here’s a link to some past papers. F for foundation and H for Higher.

Looking at the first higher paper, in 2019

q2 (so, the easy end of the paper)
(I didn’t choose q1 because the diagram didn’t copy over)
“The length of a pencil is 128 mm correct to the nearest millimetre.
Complete the error interval for the length of the pencil.”

q6

The nth term of a sequence is 2n^2
The nth term of a different sequence is 40 - n^2
Show that there is only one number that is in both of these

(n^2 = n squared, the formatting didn’t copy over)

The last question, q25, (no diagram given)

The straight line L has equation 3x + 2y = 17
The point A has coordinates (0, 2)
The straight line M is perpendicular to L and passes through A.
Line L crosses the y-axis at the point B.
Lines L and M intersect at the point C.
Work out the area of triangle ABC.
You must show all your working.

edit: I typed these while mumsneedwine was posting so hadn’t seen her examples.

Oh look DPD have turned up with my parcel and the builder needs another bucket of water. I will be back for question 2 later.

V good, you have managed a level 5 question. Meant for students who struggle with maths. Now try the next one as GCSEs are so easy

2b
b - a
-a - b

That's a foundation question so should be easy for you. This is higher.

Of you go @dustabsorber. show us how easy it is

They are from the foundation paper tbh.

The foundation maths is easy and I presume that is where those examples.are from.

The higher tier is seriously hard.

I think they have much better way of learning now and can watch videos for demonstrations rather than trying to read a text book and figure what it means

There are two sets of papers, Foundation and Higher.

I don’t know what a Foundation paper looks like, but know it starts with easy questions and the difficulty increases. From something I saw yesterday I think the highest possible grade you can get on that is a 5.

There are no questions as easy as the ones above at the Higher tier.

Ryan buys 4 cakes at £1.30 each 2 identical tins of soup.

Ryan pays with a £10 note. He gets £1.80 change. How much does Ryan pay for each tin of soup?

Back in the day, you would send an 8-year-old to the shops with a half crown to buy cakes at 4 1/2 D each and 2 tins of soup at 6d ea and expect them to check the change from the shopkeeper.

From an actual paper.

1. Find the square root of 64