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?

If only i could get my son on functional skills.

Exactly. I struggled with retaining maths. In the lesson things are easy, but give it a few days and I forget how it’s done. I’m the sort of person who needs maths to be repeated ad nauseam before it sticks, and at school topics move on so quick

I honestly wonder how wide spread this is.

My kids had overlearning thanks to maths factor - needed same with spelling and reading - phonics being a huge help for them.

They also need things explicitly being pointed out - so they had half = divide by 2 = times by a half - pointed out as the background noise to their lives as mathametical literacy it's just there in our house - from kids TV - number jack, number blocks - to parental coversations to maths games - to general life spliting cake, toys up.

I remember the frusation with the extra spelling lessons I was made to do during GCSE English with a teacher who'd never struggled with spelling. I remember asking for rules/guidance about adding suffixes and changing works - she said oh never thought about it you'll just have to learn each case. Luckily for our kids there were explained in a spelling program we did with practise and exceptions learnt.

The other advice I was constantly given was sound out words. Problem there is I really struggle to hear sounds in words - affected my early speach - and then I hadn't been taught phonics - and thus I either hadn't known all the trigraphs or diagphs or I was really shaky on them even if I could hear the sound didn't always know which letters it could be. No-one grasphed why I struggled they'd shrug saying well English is hard to spell phonically - so why suggest it as a statergy.

It was an exercise in frustration so stopped going and went back to the actual English lessons I'd been missing. I spent maths exams plugging maths gaps with number knowledge I did have - thats to solid maths teaching - and rest using synonyms I could spell or reconstructing sentences on fly to get round words I coudl not. I can see why some explain dsyleixa as a drag - you end up doing so much to appear the same and then get told your stupid or lazy or should just get things others do.

Good teaching is clearly incredibly helpful - having the basics solid is huge help - but not sure that schools can cover all the practise that's needed by some.

DC early maths teaching in schools all revolved around fun games - and they frequently missed, forgot or never understood the underlying principlas behind the games. So do wonder if some schools make learning maths harder for some kids with the techniques they use.

There's a real and tangible difference between educated "Maths" and basic lifestyle day to day numeracy, and I think it's time that our education system accepted and embraced the difference.

Been done in Wales for years - next exam upheaval coming soon they go back to one GCSE.

It seems to have been treated like English Lang and Lit - everyone asks for English language - next step still mostly wanted the maths GCSE not the numeracy.

The problem now as I see it is that it's an employer's market right now. 30 odd years ago, when I started working, there were a lot more jobs 'for the masses' - factories, etc, that paid enough to live on, (even though the NMW didn't even exist when I started work, the cost of living was a lot lower. I rented a flat on my own and had spare after bills on a low wages factory job. Imagine that now!).

Today's cohorts of young people are struggling to see NMW as an option. It won't pay for them to leave home, have a mortgage etc, as it once did for us. Employers now will have hundreds of applicants. If looking at school leavers, they raise the bar because they can. Because there's 50 applicants with experience applying that they could hire, so what's going to make them choose the wet behind the ears graduate?

It's not just the pay, there simply aren't as many of the mass employment jobs there once were. No typing pools now, fewer factories altogether. The 'go-tos' for the masses are disappearing at an alarming rate. Jobs that aren't 'trade' but used to employ thousands.

The rise in technology does create jobs, but not so much at the unskilled end. Added to this we now have young people who simply don't want to be 'blue collar' even for a short period of time. The potential workforce not only can't afford NMW, they've been told from a young age it's not good enough for them. Far more of the cohort leaving secondary school this year will not only expect to study at college to go on to uni, but will expect to be starting at a higher wage. They will also expect flexible working hours and a good work/life balance. Which is why so many won't be looking at trades or NHS work, or care work. They want bank holidays, Christmas, WFH, flexitime, no weekends.

They are queuing up for the office jobs, and those nice offices have their pick.

It's a hard world today for lots of reasons, and I am bloody glad to have started when I did and not now. It's more competitive, much harder to get a living wage.

This is true I used to be a nurse and worked with a lot of health care assistants, who can be invaluable to the health service
Although many came from a wide nd varied background,s it wasent a job that llrequired qualifications as such ,( although I think the trust i worked for gave successful candidates basic numeracy and literacy tests for those who didn't have any GCSE,s
Basically if you had good common sense, were articulate and caring ,you would be ideal for the job
Nowadays some trusts want candidates to have NVQ,s and Btechs some even have apprenticeship, s for HCA,s

what absolute rubbish! nobody needs to know what the angles of a quadrilateral shape add up to or how to work out the volume of a pyramid. it’s utter tosh. if you can do addition, multiplication, division, ratios, fractions and percentages that’s more than enough to get you through day to day life

Well said @ObelixtheGaul
The graduate market is brutal right now as well.

Nail on the head. Teach those basics in a "life/work" way and you've cracked what's essential for a functioning working adult. We're back to something like the 11+ exam. Those who havn't looked at one should do, it's quite illuminating as to the types of "Maths" that's examined and the level for 11 year olds. We should use that standard of Maths for 16 year olds who have been struggling throughout secondary years - reduce the breadth and difficulty of the content and concentrate on more relevant "real life" style of numeracy.

Civil engineers and architects?

Totally agree. My DD learned to read by sight. Her reading was great but she couldn’t pass a phonics test to save her life! Her teacher told me not to worry as some children NEVER understand phonics. So why make it the only way to learn to read in school?!

Maths has always been difficult too. And ironically it was hard because they teach lots of different methods to do the same thing. She was absolutely baffled. I got her a tutor in Y4 to find out what she did/didn’t know. Surprise surprise, she’d been mixing up all the different methods she’d been told and was going round and round in circles.

She’s had a tutor throughout Y10 and Y11 to help her get her GCSE maths. It’s cost a fortune. Money I really don’t have but she has to get the elusive G4. She has never passed a mock… she’s desperate to get onto an L3 course at college. She’s trying so so hard. I don’t know what else she can do.

I didn’t realise that 1/3 will fail anyway. How ridiculous. And demoralising. Surely they should just state what the pass mark is and be done! She could do it next year and get a 5 and only get a 3 this year with the same level of achievement. Makes no sense to me.

Angles in a quadrilateral shape add up to 360°. Something that can be easily memorised. Also the formula is easy is enough to memorise.

Same with the volume of a pyramid. The formula is easy enough to memorise. And then it's just rinse and repeat.

But how often day life are you using it ?
I'm 51 and whilst I use basic mental arithmetic everyday that I was taught at primary school, I have never had a need to calculate angles since I left school

If it was just one "fact" then yes, easily memorised, but it's not. They've got to learn huge numbers of things in schools, not just Maths, but English, Sciences, humanities, languages, etc etc. Some people have better memories than others. Some people forget things quicker than others.

Not helped that in, say, Maths, a pupil may remember the angles in triangles and quads, but then it's months before they're required again, by which time they've forgotten and have to re-learn.

But why do we even need to "learn" them. Why not have "crib sheets" like formula sheets in Maths exams? Having to learn random things and then having to them is two different skills. Kids with poor memories may well be good at application of skills, critical thinking, analysis, etc., but can't demonstrate those skills because they're held back by poor memory!

I'd rather we taught skills, like how to work out the angles once you've been told they add up to 360 or 180 which is far more accessible for pupils with poor memories or who have too much to learn if they're doing say languages alongside.

What proportion of school leavers become civil engineers and architects?

Why teach and examine something that only a tiny proportion of people will ever need and effectively "write them off" if they can't do such things, despite them being unlikely to ever need such things??

Surely for more specialist professions etc., the more complex things should be taught at higher levels, i.e. A level, degree level, or professional exam level?

Just googled it, approx 150k civil engineers and architects working in the UK out of a total working population of about 35-40 million!

There are nearly a million accountants/book-keepers working in the UK, but schools aren't teaching double entry book-keeping!

Right but someone working in Aldi for example and I think thst is a perfectly respectable job BTW, is going ti do just fine with basic numeracy

My 80s primary it was all look and say. I do think phonics teaching would have helped in that it would have been another tool in the kit.

Having said that my DC all had nursury, early school years and home doing phonics - and still needed considerable help with reading and spelling - the spelling was phonics, word groups and a lot of over learning - they came out much better spellers than me at same age but still weaker than expected for their level.

Fingers crossed for your DD though - DN was at 3/4 border two years ago and she on the day scrapped a 4 so could go straight to level 3 course - she got 9 in Art and 8 in photography - and that's area she's pursuing.

DD1 struggled though A-levels underprerfoming to expectations - she was covid years so missed GCSE exams and in retrospect we should probably have looked more at Btec options - but she got into uni - finally got diagnosed with exactly same profile as me - and her course is 100% course work and she gets support software - so most of her issues are gone and she's doing really well.

I can't think of one workplace I needed to maths or writing that I didn't have some access to calculator or computer with relevant software on. If you do get though the hoops at all these levels and then all strife and struggle just goes.

Why would someone aspire to work at Aldi?

It's close to thier home, the shifts fit with their family, they enjoy that type of work, it fits thier skill set, there are opportunities for progression. An assistant store manager earns well enough for instance.

At one point they actually had a really good graduate scheme.

Nothing wrong with working there.

@CatHairEveryWhereNow

I can't think of one workplace I needed to maths or writing that I didn't have some access to calculator or computer with relevant software on. If you do get though the hoops at all these levels and then all strife and struggle just goes.

I fully agree. I've worked in accountancy for over 40 years and even back in the 80s when I started, we were using calculators, computers, etc. with very little need for mental arithmetic, etc. It's funny when I tell people socially I'm an accountant and they immediately assume I'm some kind of maths genius - nothing can be further from the truth - I'm numerate but that's it! When my son was at school, I could help him up to GCSE level, but completely lost when he was doing A level Maths, and when he was doing his Maths degree, it was like a different language! And that's despite me getting A level in Maths back in the day myself - I just about scraped the minimum grade I needed to train to be a chartered accountant!

Well we cant all be civil engineers and architects,can we 🙄
Theee is nothing wrong with working at Aldi

The snootery on this discussion is staggering! Yes, lots of people aspire to a solid regular job in retail, hopefully a bit above NMW, to pay the bills or as a step into a retail career. Including people who struggled at school. If they didn't, there would be empty shelves in supermarkets. If you are unemployed you aspire to work anywhere.

There's nothing wrong with working at Aldi - Dmum worked at a supermarket don't think she aspired to it but it fitted around her other commitments and brought needed money in.

Quiet a few of the people DH went to school with started at shop floor and slowly worked up into management or sideways into logistics/warehouse/other areas- there's few jobs or industry left round his way.

I was taken a back though when HT spoke to DD2 on track for good GCSE planning A-levels already thinking about degree - there's only a very few specialised degrees most set up by indurstry - and some chemisty/material science degrees - she could then take it in various directions mostly like R&D or technical side of manfactoring. I knew someone in this area she said she spent a lot of time looking round chinese factories - she got a degree as a mature student but earned well.

Head teacher suggested she could work in a shop - when DD2 told me I said well yes R&D and manufacturing that's one area that will likely need those skills - no mum she said I could serve customers in a clothes shop. I mean I was very WTF.

I agree.

It's "attitude" problems that are causing the shortages in manual work, trades, etc., where people think that "dirty" work is beneath their little Tabitha or Justin so almost force them into university instead to do a degree they're not interested in and won't lead to a "good" job.

Nothing wrong with working in supermarkets, fast food places, etc as they usually have good prospects for those wanting to develop themselves.

easy enough to memorise.

Except for some DC it isn’t ‘easy enough’.