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?

Another good question.

Yep so many people don't seem to understand the difference between a learning disability which affects all areas of life
And learning difficulties which affect academic learning.

I got 5 GCSEs C and above, maths has just always bested me. I have pretty good mental arithmetic, and I worked in insurance for many years where I was calculating premiums etc.

I struggle with anything visual - angles/shapes. I can't picture things in my head at all. The "which 2-D drawing is the 3-D shape" being my ultimate nemesis. Not sure I've even described it correctly(!)

@x2boys although some with learning difficulties have difficulties in other areas of life as well as academics but don’t have a learning disability.

I teach in England, and also do private tutoring of primary and secondary pupils. 17 years of primary school teaching.
I can only comment on what I've seen over the years. And I stand by it. A "normal" 10-11 year old could probably get a 4 tomorrow, without too much strain.

I will add a small preface though... Only if they are fluent in their times tables. I've said it so many times over the years, to all my students, you will never access the higher levels if you haven't got instant recall of your tables.

That's not to do with inherent ability, it's solely due to the speed of the exam papers. If you want to get through the whole paper, you haven't got time to be sitting working out 5x9 or 6x12 on your fingers.

Memorising the first few prime numbers too, so that you don't waste time trying to simplify equations that can't be simplified etc.

Trouble is that the necessity to memorise things like that means Maths teaching becomes inaccessible to those who have poor memories.

I really don't see the harm in providing a sheet of times tables and prime numbers to pupils to help those who simply can't remember them, however hard they try. They'd still be disadvantaged because it would take time to look up instead of straight from memory, but at least they'd be able to show some actual Maths skills rather than memory.

I'm a primary school teacher, and honestly, an average 11yo could get a 4 if they sat the exam now.

This is bollocks.

Back when we had National Curriculum levels, Level 4 was the average level of an 11 year old and Level 7 was roughly grade C GCSE.

I've said it so many times over the years, to all my students, you will never access the higher levels if you haven't got instant recall of your tables.

DD's year 4 teacher used to say this all the time. I used to have to test DD's tables all the time as they had tables tests regularly. The primary school was outstanding.

I remember DS when they "3 is the magic number" song

Fortunately I left school in 1977, when it was 'hoped' you'd get at least a C grade in maths, but if you didn't then some fields and onward study were closed to you, but there were alternatives without having to get a maths qualification.

Which was lucky, because despite having 8 O levels at B grade and above, and being reasonably intelligent, I could NOT get maths. I retook my O levels and I even took a CSE, but my grades just got lower and lower each time. I think E grade O level was my highest. I went back to school later in life to try again and - nope. I've just had to resign myself to not being able to do maths.

It hasn't held me back in life at all and I've got a first class degree in my chosen profession. There were courses I wasn't eligible for (which was why I kept retaking) that I would have liked to have studied but, on the whole, life has been pretty good. And not having a maths qualification stopped me from being pushed towards a career in teaching, which I would have been DREADFUL at, so some good came of it.

You've seen the KS2 SATs papers and you know the Foundation papers.

How much harder do you think they are?

What is your degree/chosen profession?

Obviously there is some overlap in the types of questions and people go 'oooh you have to multiply fractions on the SATs paper and also have to multiply fractions on the GCSE paper and think that means they are the same difficulty.

But it's missing out the much, much bigger syllabus that is covered at GCSE. All the formal algebra, a much larger amount of geometry, probability, stats as well as calculator methods. Kids have to know much more and a lot of it is more abstract.

But..do you need to know all that stuff to get a Grade 4?

Yes - there is more complex stats etc on the Foundation paper - but you only need about 50% to get a Grade 4 so you can get away with not knowing the more complex stuff on a Foundation paper if you are confident enough with about half the questions.

No, you don’t need to know the whole syllabus but you need to know a lot more maths to get a grade 4 on foundation than is on the KS2 curriculum.

A lot more?

Looking at the Foundation papers, what knowledge do you think you need to get a Grade 4 - ie about 50% to 55% that is not covered on KS2 maths curriculum?

That's a very specific question - clearly things like Pythagoras aren't covered at KS2 but you don't really need to know Pythagoras to get a Grade 4.

Grade 4 is 75%, not 50%.

AQA Foundation Maths - calculator 2023

https://cdn.sanity.io/files/p28bar15/green/9b429174169effa582d6d1bf9aea89777ea0e7eb.pdf

1. Converting cm to m
2. Increase a negative temperature by 5C
3. Percentage of a grid that's covered
4. Basic algebra
5. Mixed fractions - convert to a decimal (What is 9/4)
6. Bank statements - credit and debit
7. Magic square to make 120 by multiplying
8. Conversion graph
9. Estimating an answer
10. Working out the mean of 5 numbers
11. Converting imperial weights
12. Ratio in cooking
13. More complex algebra
14. Working out the cost of a golf trip
15. Probability

Get those right and you have about 38 marks - and a lot of that is covered regularly in KS2 maths.

There's also some nice 3 and 4 markers where some more marks can be picked up.

e..g Q23 - looking at value for money

No it's not.

That's a Grade 5

I was accused of being a pushy parent when DD sat iGCSE maths in the January of year 11 (the school entered some of the pupils early and the only exam in January was iGCSE). Apart from Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day she did a past maths paper every day for practice.

I also leanred a lot more maths when checking her papers against the mark scheme.

@cakeorwine using AQA since that is the board you mentioned, last summer you needed 157/240 at foundation for a 4, so more than 50 to 55%.

The system is designed so that roughly a third will ‘fail’ to reach that grade. So pretty easy to get a 1-3.
It isn’t a case necessarily of not being able to do basic Maths and English. They may have those skills. But 2/3 of the year group scored higher and so they didn’t get the 4.
If we want to assess what students can do and for the outside world to know what students who reach a certain standard can do, we’ve got completely the wrong grading system for that!

I'll give you that. I had always thought it was around 50 - 55% but it's not.It's clearly around 65%

I skimmed the SATs and GCSE and thought the GCSE was clearly harder than the SATs. There is more variety in the GCSE both in topics and how they are presented.
I could imagine a 'greater depth' child possibly being able to attempt a lot of the GCSE Foundation paper and possibly pass if accurate enough, but not an 'average' (mean? median? mode?) year 6. I'm not convinced though, as there are a host of topics in GCSE just not covered at primary.

It changes each year but the boundaries are remarkably low in Maths. 60% will get you a 7 lots of years!