To have not known kids have to attain grade 4 in maths?

[Pepperpotladles]

I did not know this!
I have obviously been living under a rock.
So today someone told me that if kids get grades 1, 2 or 3 in their maths GCSE, it is compulsory that all these kids have to keep on studying GCSE maths until they achieve a grade 4 or above, and they have to keep trying to achieve this up until their 25th birthday.
Is this true?!?
I can't believe my ears.
What about kids who simply can't achieve grade 4 or above in maths, for any number of reasons?

Up until the age of 25? Really? I find this a bit hard to believe. By that age,they are a fully fledged adult,so I don't see how they can be forced to do it if they don't want to.

I had to do this in 1998. I got an F at foundation level. So the school made me do it again. Except you had to do intermediate level. Which I was never going to pass. So failed. It completely.

Nope colleges have to.accept everyone so even those kids that get grades 1,s and 2,s are expected to continue doing the GCSE despite it being soul destroying for some.

They don't unless they have an EHCP it's 18/19 for most kids.

Probably is compulsary for them to carry on? And mandatory to « pass » whatever next thing they try to pass in education…

If your dc is easily looking at 7 or higher you won't have worried about the other end of the scoring scale and implications- I know that you need minimum grades in maths and English when looking for a job but was not aware of the resit requirements until reading this thread, I am lucky I have not had to worry about it.

You’re not popular with this comment. I work in a send school. Non of our kids would achieve a grease 4 on gcse. Many will sit functional skills but many won’t even get that far. No one plans to have a child with a disability and you are lucky that yours doesn’t. My eldest is autistic and at mainstream and is sitting GCSEs this year. They need a 4 in maths and English for their chosen college and it should be achievable for them as they are doing higher papers. However being autistic, anything could happen on the day. They can still get into college without maths and if they don’t get their English they’d have to resort alongside their course.

DS has only got a 3 in maths despite him sitting it 4 times. They haven't made him resit again, he's 20 now. He attended a special school and is now in a SEN college. I said it wasn't fair to keep getting him to resit if a 3 is clearly his best and I doubt he would have even agreed to do it again anyway, he was fed up it.

Of course yabu, theyve always needed a C

A foundation maths paper actually needs a score of 40-60% to pass at grade 4. A higher maths paper required around 10-25% but majority of students working at a grade 4 or less would never be put forward for a higher tier.
To say ‘if a child can’t get that they’re going to struggle in life’ is incredibly condescending. Just because a child may struggle with maths in school does not mean they will struggle in life. Many a people have no GCSEs and manage perfectly well or have done incredibly well in life.

Up to age 18, not age 25, whether at college, a job or in an apprenticeship. Same for English language too, need at least a 4.

I was helping a friend's daughter with some Foundation maths questions today and can honestly say I struggled with the wording of some of the 5 mark questions. I used to work as a financial journalist, so consider myself both literate and numerate! I don't think that someone who can't pass that paper is necessarily unprepared for life.
In fact, given the importance of Maths and English skills to life, exams seem an inappropriately impractical way of testing them. I'd imagine it matters more to an employer if you can actually use maths than if you can remember it in the bizarre and unrealistic setting of an exam.
Teacher assessed grades would surely be a much better way of deciding who passes and fails these subjects, with exams and option for students who disagree with their teacher's assessment or who require proof of a higher level of competency than a pass offers.

You wouldn't need to do simultaneous equations to get a level 4.

Again. Simultaneous equations are on the syllabus for Foundation, along with trig, pythagoras, vectors and other 'non basic' maths. If you can't do any of these then you have to be certain to be able to not make any mistakes on the rest of the paper.

We did the big experiment in teacher assessed grades during covid, remember? It's a terrible way to assess pupils!

I know, but that doesn't stop a similar kind of exam being used, not the 11+ itself.

I wonder what the probability is of some of these comments on here being genuine whilst others must be made up as surely no one can be ignorant about the fact that people can struggle with maths and that some people can get a lower grade than 7.

It's a farce. Ds is 18. He's finishing his level 3 plumbing and he still has to take his maths because he has missed a 4 by 2 or 2, or even 1 mark each resit. Yet he is gaining 90 plus percent in his hot water systems exams, able to work out the plumbing maths in his head. But we he's still panicking that this might stop him working, even though his tutors assure him he is an excellent student and a prime candidate gor highler level apprenticeship.

No wonder kids give up. It's soul destroying, and I say that as a teacher.

This just isn't true. I'm sorry. But it isn't.

If you want go on to A levels or other level 3 study, it's likely you will need passes in Maths and English to progress to that stage.

Likely. But not always default.

My youngest is doing a level 3 next year which specifies a relatively high grade in two specific subjects and three more at 4 plus.

It doesn't require Maths.

Eldest and I got decent Russell Group degrees. We weren't asked for GCSE grades post Yr12.

To me the issue is that entry level jobs typically stipulate a pass in both English and Maths.

These are jobs that people who are for whatever reason more academically able don't want to begin with.

I have two very bright and personable step sons who have SEN and are adopted because of early years neglect and trauma.

They are articulate and probably better at the real life application of mathematics than me or my kids.

They are the young people who have been told endlessly they need to retake before they can progress.

They haven't passed on retake because it is genuinely traumatic and demoralising for them to be deemed second class. It's really, really tough for anyone to be treated pejoratively like that because of things they can't control.

They would probably do very well with a functional skills course.

They'll have access to adult learning in a few years and they'd fly at that.

When a grade 4 in Jasprit having 17 oranges, giving three to Tania, six to Ben and just one quarter to Isla doesn't preclude them earning a living and taking pride in what they do and who they are.

This isn't a level playing field. It's a bumpy one. Where the most vulnerable and already let down are most likely to fall through the cracks.

The system is deeply flawed. And discriminatory.

As is any parent so controlling that they'd force an individual into a course of study under duress or pressure. Demanding a pass through bullying.

"I'd never let a child of mine leave school without a grade 4 in Maths! Over my dead body!"

That's cruel and inhumane.

It's 'your'. 😉

This is Mumsnet. Everyone on here has children who are apparently geniuses, who have never knew a grade 7 even existed and only ever go to Russell Group Universities!

I went to a RG ( completely meaningless) university.

Lots and lots of people do. Mostly with fairly decent - but not exceptional - grades. Like me!

My GCSEs weren't ever mentioned. It's not like they count towards UCAS points!

Good job. Because I had to retake Maths to scrape a C.

There's clearly a separate Mumsnet admissions procedure where getting into a 'Russell Group' university (such as the UK's largest university, Manchester) requires additional steps.

Like three As at A level. And 12 GCSEs - including Latin - also at A.

But didn't quite scrape Oxbridge.

Bless!

My degree has served me well in that it got my foot through a door to my career.

No one's ever given a shiny shit about my GCSE results or which university I went to.

I've just worked hard and kept learning.

I'm a mediocre person with a mediocre degree in a job I love and am good at.

My eventual narrowly scraped pass in GCSE maths hasn't informed my life at all.

And anyone saying it relates to budgeting and daily tasks is not up to speed.

Life really, really is very short.

Going to an RG university means absolutely nothing.

Going to an RG university means absolutely nothing.

Start a thread with this as the title, I dare you 🔥

I’m hoping it stays fine for a lot of you, especially the ‘cold day in hell’ poster. Students can be bright, articulate and functional in the world, but our very broken education system measures them by a no longer fit for purpose couple of subjects. Of course they should have the opportunity to re-sit, but forcing an otherwise able young person to re-sit maths when they have proven they were unable to the first time, is an unrealistic stress. Functional skills are less readily available than people think, although much more suitable for many. GCSE maths proves little about numeracy in day to day life. Further education colleges are full of young people forging ahead and having to resit, and for the smug pearl clutchers, don’t kid yourselves that decent sixth form colleges don’t have resit classes too - something they didn’t bother with before the changes to conditions of funding.

I went to a RG ( completely meaningless) university.

So did I.

RG was so meaningless to me that I didn’t actually realise I’d gone to one before I started seeing all the angst on MN!