To wonder if there is a way around maths.

[Bellabluea]

My lovely intelligent daughter is 19 and just cannot do maths.
She has an ASD diagnosis but I’m 100% sure she has dyscalculia too.
She is flying at college in her course but keeps failing maths. She just can’t do it. It’s affecting her mental health and making her feel so stupid when she’s really not. She had a tutor for years who specialised in special needs and she worked so hard with her but privately said to me that she was stumped with her because nothing she teaches her transfers over. So she can do basic maths, but when it comes to applying basic maths to new scenarios it’s like she needs to learn from scratch again.
She really wants to become a counsellor and go to university. Will she be forever hindered by this? I feel like people with dyslexia are way more understood.
In my opinion she is never going to pass a GCSE in maths.
She passed entry level 3 but failed level 2 last year.
Is there a way around this? Would an official diagnosis help? Has anyone been in this position?

I don't have any answers, OP, but I wanted to express my solidarity with you!
I'm sorry that your daughter has ended up feeling this way.

There seems to be an increasing emphasis on maths and it is all but impossible for some people (myself included).

I understand why arithmetic is needed in everyday life, but why say that those who really struggle absolutely must have GCSE maths?

As I say, I don't have any solutions, but I hope that your daughter can find some way to achieve what she wants without passing the maths and without feeling stupid!

Thanks @ZorbaTheHoarder . She can do enough to get by and she’s so intelligent and articulate it breaks my heart that she thinks she’s stupid. She’s come so far and is trying so hard.

Some courses offer their own "gcse equivalent" test - I did one to get on my pgce post graduate teacher training. I studied the past papers they provided. I still had to do the skills tests all newly qualified teachers did then. Having been somewhat traumatised by maths when a teenager, I still became a very capable primary teacher teaching maths as part of my job to under 11s, possibly with a bit more empathy and oomph than many others.
Make sure to ask courses how they plan to be accessible to great candidates who struggle with gsw maths. They might have a creative solution!

Some universities take Functional Skills Maths - has she looked at this? We use this when we have students who just can't pass their GCSE.

Keep searching for a work around. You will find one.
Many years ago my school deemed it would be a waste of the entrance fee to sit maths .
I found a university that didn't insist on maths (probably easier long also) and got a degree
She'll get there

She failed functional skills maths. She freaks out massively when I comes to the exam.

Official diagnosis should definitely help but there are also other options - for example she could do an open university course as they don't have such stringent entry criteria or she could work for a number of years and get some real life experience (preferably in a related field) and then enter a uni programme as a mature student. I completed my BA and MSc with no school qualifications (dropped out when I was 16 and went to uni at the age of 30. At this point my professional experience was accepted in lieu of GCSEs)

I hear you! My DD is the same.

Mine has ASD, as well as dyslexia some other stuff going on. She has reasonable adjustments and exam adjustments, but she just can’t do the exam.

She wants to go on to further study, the place she wants to go to require level 3 BTECH or 2 A levels with GCSE grade 4 maths or a Functional Skills level 2 pass.

She can do maths, but she doesn’t always recognise what she’s being asked to do, so, for example, she can do algebra, trigonometry, etc absolutely fine - she just doesn’t always recognise that that’s what she’s being asked to do. Plus she falls apart in the exam.

She wants to do functional skills level 2 as she finds it a bit more pragmatic than GCSE maths, but her college won’t let her do it as she’s achieved a grade 3 maths in the past. We are considering paying for her to do it privately through Learn Direct or something like that if it comes to it.

She’s doing a BTECH course - she passed level 2 with distinctions, but just can’t do the maths exams. Fortunately college have made an exception and let her do level 3 while retaking maths again otherwise she’d be stuck. She’s more than capable of doing the level 3 BTECH so it would have been a shame if she couldn’t do it because of maths.

A formal diagnosis of dyscalculia is the first step to taking the pressure off and dealing with exam issues, get her assessed asap.
Secondly there are many professional careers that don’t involve much mathematical ability , she just needs to play to her strengths and scrape through - much helped by a formal diagnosis - with baseline maths to move onto a degree. She sounds like a brilliant young woman OP x

Functional skills is harder than GCSE. Does she get a reader and extra time? GCSE resit with right support

In Scotland we have Application of Maths (or Apps), would there be something similar your DD could try?

https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/81282.html

Would something like this be any good?

Can she get a formal diagnosis it would get her extra time in the exam?
My son’s friend got an extra half hour and passed b one point, I’m sure that it helped.

There are some universities which don't require a Maths GCSE for most of their degree courses. Don't assume it's essential everywhere.

My daughter is exactly the same, she is at college on the course she wants to do but had to the resit in May which she failed again with a worse grade than the original exam. They are insisting she resits again in November, but I'm pretty sure she will fail again as like your daughter, she just can't remember when it comes to the exam. She has had a tutor in the past and gets the extra time, but nothing really helps and it's awful for her self-esteem. We have also looked at the functional skills level 2, but I don't think the exam is any easier.
I was exactly the same when I was at school, and I needed a maths pass to do a qualification for work.
Our local University runs summer courses in basic maths for those who don't have a pass. It is over 4 weeks with 2 classes a week done over MS Teams, but the really good part is that you sit the exam at home and have from 9am to 11:59pm to complete, scan and upload the exam. Sitting it at home meant I could refer to my notes and as along as I showed all my working out I got the marks. I managed to pass with 88%, so next summer I am going to get my daughter to do this.