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?

Perhaps you should have paid more attention yourself.

I am cringeing for you with your posts. Passing a maths exam requires so many different skills, and people’s brains are wired differently. There are also complicating factors like focus and concentration, social factors, stamina, confidence etc. I am astonished an adult doesn’t know this.

I use maths everyday at work as part of my job but I totally appreciate that people do find it difficult and they sometimes get a glazed expression in their eyes when I talk about some maths thing I find interesting.

There is so much more to maths than people learn at school - and it could be made so much more interesting for people.

I do follow maths people in YouTube - granted sometimes they get quite into their maths but there are some really interesting maths communicators who can make maths interesting without going too much into complex equations.

Hannah Fry is a great maths communicator

Both my sons have ASD, ADHD and complex medical needs. Both went to special schools. Eldest is a maths whizz and very academic. Youngest is the opposite. He managed to pass functional skills maths at the second attempt whilst at college studying to be a personal trainer. Finished top of his cohort despite being the youngest. He is now a qualified tennis coach who earns more than I do, all at the age of 18! He still struggles with maths so needs help understanding basic bookkeeping and tax returns, which I'm happy to do and none of which are taught in school anyway. I couldn't be more proud of him for trying his best with academic subjects, and finding his passion outside of school, then making it his career.

Forcing kids with SEND to endlessly resit exams is damaging to their self esteem and awful for their parents too.

Good luck to anyone with DC sitting maths today.
And more good luck to anyone with a DC re-sitting.
And a whole tonne to any re-re-sitting.

It wasn't on my radar at all until my children started their GCSEs either. Obviously now we're in the GCSE years it very much at the forefront of almost every homework, school work, future planning conversation. I now have English and Maths tutors booked in and it's costing a fortune but if they want to go to college and not have to resit I feel like I have little choice!

Having spent hours helping with homework (up there with the most stressful things I have ever done!!!) I can see the relevance of the topics especially Maths.

Ask the school? Careers staff or head of sixth or similar. Check with 6th form college?

Good luck to everyone sitting maths GCSE -and other subjects as well.

I agree. That’s what I was trying to say in previous posts. Schools tend to just repeat their ways of teaching, and if it didn’t work the first few times, it’s insanity to keep trying to explain it the same few limited ways using the same resources and language. More so if the pupil keeps getting the same teacher!

It’s why approaching it in lots of different ways is more likely to succeed, such as your grandad example. A teacher doing private tuition could fall into the same trap - doing exactly the same as classroom teachers but expecting different outcomes! Whereas time with “Grandad” who isn’t blinkered and restricted with formal study material and past exam papers can “teach” in a completely different way to get the person seeing a glimmer of light and gain a few competencies in the basics to enable them to move forward with a bit of confidence.

Like the classic example of Brit’s abroad who can’t speak the language so just repeat themselves getting louder and slower!

Also agree with another pp who could cope well with money and change, currency conversions, etc., - she CAN do maths,, but just not in the way it’s taught for exams nor answering exam style questions. Change the terminology and methodology and you’ve cracked it!

I don't think it's dull, far from it. I love to hear people talk about it, particularly the higher level stuff. I just can't do it.

What would really help is a drop in judgement from maths bods. Both IRL (which is why I hide it) and online, there's a tendency to ridicule. We've seen some of the attitudes on this thread.

It's much less prevalent in the 'good at English' community. There's a lot more sympathy and support for those who struggle with reading and writing. I have come across more scoffing and 'it's so easy my 5 year old could do it'.type remarks pertaining to maths.

I don't know why that is, but it would massively help the profile of maths if those of us who aren't the best at it weren't driven into the defensive position of either hiding it or wearing it like a badge because we feel we have to prove we can be, to quote a pp 'functional members of society'.

That is a valid point @ObelixtheGaul - looking it up the British Dyslexia Association have 6% of the population have dyscalculia and 25% have maths learning difficulties but this is just ignored and I agree on this thread somewhat ridiculed

but actually the numbers who don’t make the ‘pass mark’ reflect this

there Is far more support and coping strategies in place for English difficulties but not maths

@Tiswa it's slightly better now that dyscalculia is recognised than it was when I was a girl.
But there still isn't the understanding and acceptance. Having to use a calculator is still met with remarks, though not as much as when I was younger, and all the older people would give me all the 'no calculators in my day' malarkey.

And yet nobody criticises anyone for admitting they need to use a dictionary to look up a spelling, or listening to an audio book because they struggle with reading.

Why am I not allowed to use the tools at hand to help me? When I worked in the shop I mentioned before, I was criticised once for using the till (which I had to do anyway, because produce had to go through it) and smugly informed the customer could add up the items in his head and had given me the right money - snide remarks about 'simple maths' and 'poor education'.

Why? Why are people like this about maths?

People are like that cos they are ignorant of any alternative. Blinkered. Lacking in experience except their own. Unable to see that others are different.

Take art, or similar subjects. I am USELESS at such subjects - and always will be. Take English Literature as well. USELSS at that too. I recall my teacher (I was about 14) asking us questions about a poem and one was "Why do you think he says that the sky is blue?". Well, the only thing I could answer was "well, cos it WAS blue". No further discussion needed, as far as I could see! Now I am 73 I might be a tad better, but life experience takes a long time to achieve!

Apparently paper 1 was pretty hard. Much harder than the last set of mocks, I'm told reliably.

I'm not sure it's been mentioned. But exam conditions can really have an impact on wellbeing and - therefore - attainment.

As can what's happening on that particular day.

Some people are just great at exams. My husband, for example.

Unconditional from Oxford having spent many years in overseas British schools - because of his dad's work - and then being placed as a border in a UK private school payed for by dad's employer.

He'd have done anything to fit in, frankly. Poor, poor boy.

Other people aren't great at exams.

What you might learn from the syllabus might be cross-transferrable to everyday life.

Such as budgeting, shopping or getting a mortgage.

But no one makes adults do any of those things in an unventilated room with nowt but a transparent pencil case, prison issue water bottle and an oppressive invigilator watching every move.

That's not akin to real life, thankfully.

Unless you do want a six figure salary from Deloitte etc.

Then it's pretty much business as usual, I guess!

@BornSandyDevotional Ah but which paper 1?

There is Edexcel, Aqa, OCR, foundation and higher. (And Welsh board and IGCSE).

Mine found Edexcel Foundation quite hard (grade 2,3, and hopefully some 4 kids). I was annoyed because they had plotting a quadratic on it, which they would have smashed on a calculator paper because they've all been trained to use the Table function on their calculators but would probably mess up on non-calc.

There was a 'what is the name of this 3D shape' question which was a cylinder. Some didn't get that. These are kids who have been taught what a cylinder is a few times, and they've worked hard and revised. They just can't retain facts very well.

Higher. Not sure which board.

Really determined human. Standard state school in the SE.

I could look up the exam board for you.

But I'm more concerned about his experience.

Genuine question: do other parents really research the exam board and other external factors when their children sit GCSEs?

What will that achieve?

How can it be a general certificate of secondary education if it's so variable nationally?

Who decides all this?

It's just a cottage industry for people who passed Maths GCSE but couldn't get into a Russell Group Uni, isn't it? 😂

@noblegiraffe last few days I have been doing shapes with DD. What is a ball, a Toblerone, a pringles tube etc, so hopefully she got that one!

Yes, so that I could download previous practice papers for DD.
She also had the CGP revision guides which are all exam board specific.

TBH I find it surprising that a parent wouldn't know this or try to find out.

The school were pretty good at communicating this kind of information to parents anyway.

Genuine question: do other parents really research the exam board and other external factors when their children sit GCSEs?
What will that achieve?

In DD2's case yes as she did home school/online school from part way through Y10 and was sitting it as a private candidate, studying with a tutor so there was a choice.

Fingers crossed! It was a short, squat cylinder which put some of them off.

I expect there were some marvellous spellings too

Also, DD's school was selling the CGP revision guides at parents evening, so we couldn't fail to know which exam board the shool used for every subject.

Thinking about that, I'm sure on this thread there are some people who just wouldn't understand that a child could recognise a cylinder if it was standing on its end but then fail to name it if it was lying on its side.

Keep your smug ludicrous posts coming, they're the best laugh I've had in a long time.
Self awareness = none!