A level AQA Maths and Further Maths predicted grades, how are they calculated?

[cwmble]

Hi, My teen did well in his mock Maths A level with an A* but may have only just scraped a C in Further Maths. Wondering how the predicted grades are calculated..will the Maths grade be pulled down by his Further Maths grade? Any info on this would be much appreciated!

it won’t be pulled down

but surely at 18 this is something he would ask his maths teacher about and know by now?!

He will be but I'm asking too here too!

That's good to know thanks

I would expect his predictions to be A* in maths and C is Further Maths unless those grades are out of the norm for him.

I think it completely depends on the school/college, and what the predictions are for.

Do you mean the ones to go on his UCAS form, to the exam board or something else? In my school we have a discussion between both (or all) his Maths teachers, and we take more into account than a single mock exam mark per subject, eg how he is in class, in homeworks, class tests and so on.

To answer the question you asked, his Maths grade won’t necessarily be pulled down by his FM grade. It’s just one piece of evidence. It may be that the larger the school, the more likely they are to have a fixed (or consistent, from their point of view) way of giving predicted grades than looking at each candidate individually. Or, it may not.

As UCAS says

• Schools and colleges typically maintain various sets of predicted grades that all serve different purposes, and are made at different points in the year. For example, those given to awarding bodies are typically provided later in the year than those provided to UCAS.

How similar the predicted grades are to the mock grades depends on various things, such as whether it was a full paper (including topics not yet covered), how well the student is generally doing and whether the performance in the mock was typical of their usual standard.

It definitely depends on the school- but his further maths grade certainly shouldn’t affect his maths grade, because they’re whole separate a-levels. I’d imagine he would have an A* predicted in maths and a B-A (??) in further maths. The good thing about UCAS is that they’re really flexible about updating grades along the way, and assuming he hasn’t put an application in yet, he’ll be able to do some extra work to bring his predicted grade up. Honestly don’t worry though, further maths is really hard, so a grade C in mocks isn’t too much to worry about right now.

Hi OP, you might get more traffic on your thread if you ask for it to be moved to the secondary education board. This board is predominantly used by HE academics.

They are separate A levels. So unconnected. It won't pull it down.

When they were modular A-levels you used to be able to arrange the modules between the A-levels to maximise grades but now they are totally separate A-levels. Predicted maths should be based on maths performance and further maths based on further maths performance. I don’t even know what my further maths kids are getting in normal maths tbh.