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?

I suppose the thing is - it's the kind of language that is used in primary school from very early on.

Concrete examples of halving, dividing, sharing ,groups of, multiplying, lots of, how many groups in

So what do you think is going on if pupils are struggling with the language later on, having been exposed to the language from early on?

There is a suggestion that children who are exposed to poor maths teaching at primary school never form that sort of sense around number that's required to make links between various areas of study. And then it's too late - so every method that they have to learn is distinct and separate and makes no sense, it's just something that is memorised. Halving is a different method to dividing by two, to finding 50%, because they don't connect fractions, division and percentages and have to memorise each.

It's like how children instinctively soak up languages when they are young, but adults learning have to memorise how to form sentences.

I should say that it is disputed whether 'dyscalculia' as a separate SEN actually exists. A lot of difficulties with maths that people may describe as dyscalculia can be traced back to those poor foundations of mathematical teaching.

Other things that people think are dyscalculia are slow processing speed and poor working memory.

What's so great about them?

What, seriously? Like you doubt they can be great kids?

They're nice, funny, polite kids who want to do well. They come cheerily into the classroom and chat about their day, their lessons, hobbies etc. There are jokes and smiles. If I lend them a pen they'll say thank you and return it at the end. And we crack on and do some maths.

A great person who struggles with maths is still a great person.

A person who "gets" maths and sneers at those who don't is not a great person.

I wasn’t comparing them to me, I was comparing them to Year 9s I’m personally familiar with.
Who are, for the avoidance of doubt, also real children.

With the face. Unnecessary, don't you think?

Whatever.

Why are you taking this so personally? You seem very, very touchy on behalf of these (completely unidentifiable, whatever you say) children.
I just queried whether this was the normal expected standard for Year 9, because I don’t believe for a moment that it is.

Because I teach them and you posted " There’s nothing remotely tricky in that wording, even for a primary school child. " when I gave an example of how words could cause issues in maths even when the maths is known.

I was using them as an example in a discussion about language difficulties and you took it as an opportunity to sneer at them.

And then another poster suggested they couldn't be great kids.

Perhaps we should make empathy and kindness the required standard to progress in life.

Would you say that your examples of not understanding that dividing by 2 is the same as halving or 50% is common amongst Year 9s - or would you say that is unusual?

Oh, I see - you’re taking umbrage because you teach these kids, @noblegiraffe…
My question was “Is that the expected standard?” and you’ve taken it as a personal affront to your teaching capabilities.
Kind of ironic in a discussion about the difficulties of language, really…
You’ve (either wilfully or otherwise) misunderstood every post I’ve made.

Maths skills are viewed as essential to being able to get a job/be able to function in everyday society. Grade 4 is not onerous for children who don't have learning disabilities - they aren't expecting kids to get 95% of the questions right! The tests are graded on a "bell curve" for fairness, so there isn't a definite mark to aim for, but it's around a 20-25% score (or for those who are bad at maths that means if there are 100 questions you can get 75-80 of them wrong and still get a grade 4 passing grade!).

The notion that children are "forced" to stay in school until age 25 isn't true. What is true is that children are expected to retake English/Maths if they are under 18 years old, or on a 16-19 study plan. But some schools/colleges have a "functional skills" course that is offered as an alternative to GCSEs. Bear in mind that the vast majority of employers and further education courses require English and Maths GSCEs (and preferably science too). It's also the case that children can retake the tests as often as they wish - there is no penalty for doing so. It might be cruddy but it's far easier generally to take and study for these tests when you are a child than it is when you are an adult with responsibilities/kids/and less time/support.

A family member works which children who are having to retake their English/Maths so they can move on with school. Sadly a lot of them just don't care and can't be bothered to apply themselves - for all sorts of reasons. Many do have a learning disability of some sort, but they aren't helped by the fact that most of them seem to drink gallons of highly caffeinated drinks, eat junk, stay up all night on their phones/computer games, and don't have caregivers who give them any kind of structure/boundaries etc etc. They are usually lovely kids and oftentimes very personable and clever (in terms of figuring out ways to avoid doing the work/make jokes) but they often feel like they have been labelled as "thick" and that's that - they think people have given up on them, and that school is stupid (especially given the way that Maths and English is taught often has very little relation to what they see as their day to day lives) and just want to do what makes them happy and don't really have much ambition other than "making tiktok videos".

Sadly these are the kids who most need good grades: they often come from backgrounds of poverty and parental alienation and lack good role models, and have been told they are thick so many times that they don't believe in themselves. Fortunately my family member is excellent at their job and the kiddos respect her and like her, so the number of kids who have been getting the grade 4 they need has increased markedly since she started working with them - because they know she actually cares and wants them to do well. Sadly that isn't necessarily true for many teachers/tutors who can and do write off these kids as beyond help/just there to tolerate.

No, your 'question' came after you sneered at them. Children.

Do you have anything useful to contribute to a discussion about how difficulties with language can cause problems with maths? Or are you just here to mock children?

"Maths skills are viewed as essential to being able to get a job/be able to function in everyday society. Grade 4 is not at all onerous - they aren't expecting kids to get 95% of the questions right! The tests are graded on a "bell curve" for fairness, so there isn't a definite mark to aim for, but it's around a 30% score (or for those who are bad at maths that means if there are 100 questions you can get 70 of them wrong and still get a grade 4 passing grade!"

On the Foundation Paper, you need about 55% to get a Grade 4.

I do think that it's got to be depressing for those pupils who have been exposed to the same core concepts of maths since Primary and are doing it again and again in secondary but they still struggle with those same core concepts.

How many pupils who struggle with those core concepts are being given lessons in the more complex areas of maths, even on Foundation, that they will never need?

I have to admit that I think I would expect most Year 9s to know that halving is the same as dividing by 2 is the same as 50%, given how much time in primary school is devoted to maths and that this language is used regularly from the start.

There's also a move towards using representations of maths with pictures, so pupils can visualise such questions - showing a rectangle and it being divided by 2, halved etc

Along with the good old pizza or chocolate - would you like 1/2 of this or 50%?

Still completely unable to interpret my posts correctly.
Language clearly isn’t your specialty.

I don't know how common it is. Because some people can cover up that difficulty because they have a good memory and are better at remembering the different processes.

Like someone who can't memorise all their times tables might still end up doing maths to a high level because they have a sense of number that helps them find a workaround and they can quickly calculate or use patterns instead. Other people can't memorise their times tables, but also can't do the workaround so the lack of times tables knowledge is far more obvious.

Perhaps those posters who think that everyone should find maths easy should train to be a maths teacher instead of insulting the maths teachers on here. We are short of maths teachers right now.

You could just apologise for sneering at the kids I teach.

But I don't expect you will.

Nobody sneered at maths teachers.
Don’t you start.

You don't seem to understand that the purpose of the maths questions is not because you are going to be expected to do long division in most jobs, but because it teaches your brain to grapple with difficult concepts and figure them out in a logical way. There are lots of books you can read about why this is important and why it is tremendously helpful for children to read and understand fiction, and to learn maths.

When I was a child I didn't much understand why I needed to learn maths/algebra either...but it became very obvious when I ended up in the career I chose: it required fast speed critical thinking, and trying to figure out answers to difficult concepts. Your brain works far better the more you use it - and maths makes you use your brain a whole lot. There's a reason why these exams are done under timed conditions too: many people could get the answers right if they were given lots of time, but the point is to train the brains to figure out complex concepts quickly. And once you form those skills they can crossover into all kinds of other skills in life.

As for the actual passing grades: clearly those can differ depending on the bell curve and level of difficulty for the paper the child is taking. So you'd need to look at and understand the bell curve for whatever paper you are taking to understand how the examination board has decided to structure who passes and fails. A child with average intelligence and aptitude at maths who doesn't have learning disabilities shouldn't have trouble meeting the grade necessary to avoid a Maths/English GCSE resit.

You may not like the fact that children need to take exams and that some kids will not pass those exams, in which case get into politics/get a lobbying job/start working for the examination boards etc etc and change the system. But until that happens the best thing to do is to give children the tools they need to do well in those tests - not to waste time berating the fact that the tests exist in the first place.

"As for the actual passing grades: clearly those can differ depending on the bell curve and level of difficulty for the paper the child is taking. So you'd need to look at and understand the bell curve for whatever paper you are taking to understand how the examination board has decided to structure who passes and fails. A child with average intelligence and aptitude at maths who doesn't have learning disabilities shouldn't have trouble meeting the grade necessary to avoid a Maths/English GCSE resit."

And yet many pupils taking Maths GCSE at Foundation don't achieve a Level 4. Which is about 55% to get one.

Despite many years of being exposed to the same core concepts at Primary and Secondary.

"You may not like the fact that children need to take exams and that some kids will not pass those exams, in which case get into politics/get a lobbying job/start working for the examination boards etc etc and change the system. But until that happens the best thing to do is to give children the tools they need to do well in those tests - not to waste time berating the fact that the tests exist in the first place."

I said that it has to be depressing for a pupil who has covered the same subjects in maths again and again and again to not be able to answer enough of those core concept questions in an exam.

"A child with average intelligence and aptitude at maths who doesn't have learning disabilities shouldn't have trouble meeting the grade necessary to avoid a Maths/English GCSE resit."

So you are saying thet those pupils who are under average with their maths aptitude will struggle to achieve the necessary grade?

What fraction of pupils are under average?

Maybe most pupils should be average or above average?

And we all know that all schools should be above average and they can all do this by getting better so they all become above average.