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?

What a thoughtless and unkind thing to say. Do you think the parents of the unsupported dyscalculic or dyslexic children just ‘let them’ not achieve? I’m not sure whether it’s you or an equally odious poster on this thread should win ‘human of the year’. Have a word with yourself.

About as hard as it for you to see that everyone has different strengths. Oh, and the results that year were phenomenal - just like they always are when a new assessment method is rolled out. I’m not sure the correlating A levels were as good though…

Same! 😂

On the plus side, it will be an especially 'cold day in Hell' if her poor children send her so much as a birthday card in 10yrs...

You'll get all the usual suspects replying to this who will insist that only a top 10 university will do

Seems like he probably didn’t get his intelligence from you then.

Yes it was the same when I was at school over 20 years ago. I remember there was a small group at college who studied for a maths resit. Didn't think much of it but that will be why.

I can't believe the bigotry of some on here. I'm 73 and in my teens I learnt by accident that at the 11-plus I got the highest mark in the whole of my county. I went to an elite secondary school (my parents had never heard of it!) and got a Grade 1 in Maths at age 14. I went on to become an Accountant, and after raising a family I found I was good at teaching so became a Uni lecturer in Accounting subjects.

In my work I have met every possible combination of GCSE levels. A high grade in Maths and English does NOT signify intelligence or even ability. Nor does a low grade indicate that someone is thick. Plenty of intelligent people struggle with certain subjects and Maths is definitely one. My late dad hardly went to school at all but was highly numerate - he learnt through trial and error and common sense. My late mum was highly literate. Dad could barely read, mum was hopeless with numbers. Both held down good jobs, and were superb parents to me.

My best friend when I had kids was a lady who failed Maths O-level. Her 15-year old son also struggled so the pair of them went to evening classes - and both got good passes. Different setting/teacher/level of pressure and in my friend's case a lot of life experience.

I think it's barmy to insist on a particular grade at age 16 in order to progress further. Yes, encourage another try (with appropriate support) but in life there are other ways of achieving what is needed to get along just fine.

A little story. A woman I worked with had superb results from her private school and became an Accountant. Her sister got v good results from her state Grammar School and became a teacher. Their little brother went to a Secondary Modern school and left with few qualifications. In the early 1980s he spotted that ordinary people were turning to drinking wine more frequently than in earlier years. He became a wine importer and a millionaire to boot.

NEVER let your child (or yourselves) consider yourselves thick because of some inability to perform at a certain level set by others. There's more to a person that their Maths grade. As said, I was a wizard at Maths but have barely used 90% of what I learnt then and don't even remember most of it.

I am biased of course but my DGD is SEN (her brother not so) but heck she is bright as a button when it comes to soaking up information like a sponge. Her vocabulary is phenomenal (but she can't spell half the words) and she has an insatiable desire for knowledge. Her school essays are full of imagination and factual stuff - just badly spelt and punctuated. She'll go far in life - as I hope many others will. Confidence is a big help, whatever grades you do or don't achieve.

Of course it's not true. There are other options like the functional skills maths qualification which is an equivalent to a GCSE pass. Lots of further study and jobs require a pass (4) at GCSE or equivalent but it's on you if you want to retake.

One of my dc always struggled with mental aspects of maths, also diagnosed with ADHD and struggled with organisation. They got a 3 in year 11, had a tutor at home and retook first year at college. Still got a 3 and when we got the papers to analyse, found they'd only increased their score by 3 marks. So disillusioned they refused to continue to attend maths classes or do the second resit. Quite competent ever since with the everyday aspects of maths - money, time etc.

You're only expected to resit for the next two years after year 11, not till 25. And no one can force you, though college could get stroppy. I'd like my dc to have better qualifications in general but they have had other successes and one day may find a need for maths GCSE which would give them the motivation to succeed this time. Or maybe not.

Personally I was good at maths, and have an A level in it.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5334391-aibu-to-think-going-to-an-rg-university-means-absolutely-nothing?page=2&reply=144264990

I teach in further education. Students who get a grade 3 in GCSE maths or English have to resit until they get a grade 4. This is to do with the conditions of funding for their vocational college courses (how surprising, it all comes down to money). Most colleges now get students with grade 2 to also resit GCSE maths and English. Students with grade 1 or U are put on functional skills maths and English courses. If they are aged 19+ at the start of the academic year then they don't have to resit, as maths and English is not considered a requirement of their course at 19+. Some students with EHCPs do stay in education until 25 but this is quite rare. The students that do stay in college to 25 are often given exemptions from having to do exams in maths and English, unless they choose to do them.

Oh the wonder of Mumsnet.

Poster A: How could you possibly not know this?

Poster B: It’s not true. How could you possibly believe this?

😂

You would think wouldn't you ?
But no my sons college has consistently put him.in for GCSE despite getting respeatedly,low grades
Last year they assured me he was on functional skills and I only found out a few weeks in they had yet again enrolled him.for GCSE ,it's frustrating for everyone.

My daughter is about to take it for the 4th time. She’s been going to night school since leaving college last year. She got a 2, 1 and then 2. Despite a private tutor and night school she doesn’t think she’s going to get this time either. It’s frustrating as she uses functional maths every day in her job but it’s really holding her back. She’s very bright, very mature and an incredibly hard worker but she just doesn’t get maths . She got 5’s and 6’s for all her other GCSE’s. I really feel for her. Every knock back she gets on the job front really zaps her confidence.

I once gave my y5/6s a foundation tier gcse paper to attempt for fun and they nearly all achieved grade 4.You do need to be spectacularly bad to fail!

So why do a third of pupils fail.ever year ??🤔🤔

@1SillySossijyou sound like an awful and v naive teacher - shame on you

I think we must have very different definitions of “fun”

By making the contents of the paper more challenging over time standards can still be raised.

The pass mark is set based on normal distribution. Pretty sure that’s a topic which should be covered in GCSE maths? 🤣

The pass mark will be set based on a bell curve representing the normal distribution of marks on the specific paper in order to provide differentiation between different levels of achievement, rather than everyone aiming for a “baseline” absolute percentage of marks (like happens through much of early primary school: that approach also has negative impacts by creating perverse incentives for teachers to focus a disproportionate amount of time and resources on those around the pass mark boundary disadvantaging the very able and those who really struggle).

However, the “bell curve” approach also has logical problems e.g. in one year - by chance - there may be a particularly high number of more gifted children (or the opposite) so the same student sitting a paper in different years might get a different mark. On a large scale with so many students sitting the exam the bell curve should provide a reasonably accurate way to stratify performance, but what the grades then show is how a student performed compared to their peers who sat the same exam. What it does not show is any direct comparison to someone achieving the same grade in a different year (despite many people thinking it does) but that would be the case anyway given that the papers change (which is one problem the bell curve is trying to address: examination boards try to “test” papers and iron this out to make them roughly the same difficulty across years but this is only successful to a degree and it’s not unusual for there to be errors in exam paper questions therefore the “average” mark being lower, for example. So an absolute pass mark in such circumstances would mean that many students fail who shouldn’t have failed).

The main problem with bell curves is when there is an attempt to use them on a dataset that is too small… as happens in many systems such as most companies’ performance grading systems for example, even when they are looking at something ridiculous like a team of 10 or 15 people where the normal distribution approach has no statistical validity.

I suppose that’s yet another reason why a basic grasp of maths and statistics is important in life and everyone should be encouraged to learn as much as they can of it (with far better teaching than currently) so that they can understand the world around them and the systems they exist within and how these impact their lives, and also when to challenge obvious statistic falsities/ misrepresentation.

Algebra?
Trig?
Simultaneous Equations?

My DD is sitting Foundation Maths (highest available grade is 2 (D? in Wales),so she’ll have to continue studying Maths at college. However, I believe there are exceptions. In these instances there may be other Maths courses they are allowed to follow in college with a greater emphasis on eg everyday Maths/Numeracy.
In DD’s case,her Autism diagnosis assessment report suggests she might have Discaclulia, so I’m hoping this will be taken into account.

I disagree, you do use GCSE maths, without realising it.

The last time I used trig was at uni (I was a mature student) and I was helping a drama student who wanted to find the area of a stage. Actually that's not true because I started an OU course but it was the last time I used GCSE trig in a real world setting.

Ratios I don't use as much because supermarkets started putting the price per kg or 100g but if you are in a supermarket it is useful to know whether a large pack of something is better value than 2 small packs.

If you are following a recipe you are using algebra, if you have a recipe for 4 people but you are cooking for 8 then you are using simultaneous equations.

I actually love the more abstract side of maths (eg imaginary numbers) but I do think an alternative paper could be written to use practical maths eg in cooking or changing the oil in a car, or - well practical uses. I know functional skills is more like that.

I looked at the foundation papers.

I could do the non calculator paper all in my head.

The 2 calculator papers I could do almost all of it in my head. But with pen, paper and calculator it would be fine.