Maths GCSE in Primary

[winterisstillcoming]

Hey everybody, I was wondering if you could help clear something up for me.

I was speaking to my SIL yesterday who told me her Y5 son is revising for his maths GCSE. He is at independent school. I said be careful only the first attempt counts. As a trustee of an Academy trust that has recently decided not to put students forward early for this reason, I thought I knew what I was talking about. Apparently not according to my SIL.

So was she correct, and is it an independent school thing that students are allowed to resit? Which puts my Trust's students at a disadvantage??

She was so bloody patronising too. And she got my nephews GCSE text books out at a family wedding.

Walkingdeadfangirl - But could definitely have done it 4/5 years ago.

Your DD could not have achieved a 9 in maths GCSE 4 or 5 years ago as the option was not available.

If you DD had sat the exam 4/5 years ago, they would ultimately have been sitting an easier exam as, from what I understand, the new GCSE curriculum is more challenging.

Re: early entry to university
Cambridge admission statistics and in particular those for 2017
UCAS statistics by age

Cambridge takes in 60-90 under-18's every year (defined as under 18 in the October they start their degree, not when they apply).
Around 12000 under-18's (again age at degree start, not on application) apply to British universities and around 6000 are accepted - enough to fill the intake of two decent sized universities.
However only about 14% of under-18 applicants are from the UK, split fairly evenly between England and Scotland (a few hundred each) with negligible numbers from NI and Wales.
The other 86% are from overseas.

British Universities, including the top ones like Cambridge, seem only too happy to accept well-qualified accelerated students before the age of 18 and indeed do accept thousands year after year. The postulated reluctance of British universities to accept accelerated students does not hold up to scrutiny.

I think the question is how many are 'just shy of 18' (I would have been 17 when starting university had I gone straight from school, so would most Scottish students until very recently ), and how many are geniunely far short of that?

I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of these younger students arrive age 17, due to differences in school exit ages in different countries. Vanishingly few will have been 'radially accelerated', so below the age of 16.

The premise of this threadd is about GCSE in primary (so accelerated by 6-7 years). How many of Cambridge's students are admitted at 11-12, rather than at 17?

think the question is how many are 'just shy of 18'

I'd be interested in knowing how many of them get a 1st and how many drop out before finishing the course?

I would also say that all those I know who started / should have started university 'young' (by 1-2 years - Scottish, accelerated by a year or both) chose to 're-set' themselves at some point.

Most took a year off (or e.g year studying abroad) before university, others a year off afterwards. Others did an MSc / MA or chose to put together a 4 year degree by changing courses to enter the job market at the standard time.

As I say, that is personal anecdote, not data, but don't know anyone who just 'ploughed on regardless' having finished school 'young', except Scottish students attending Scottish universities, who are traditionally younger on entry.

What those Cambridge admission stats show is that you are much less likely to get an offer from Cambridge if you’re under 18 than if you’re 18. Given that these accelerated pupils are supposedly exceptionally gifted, why would that be?
Is their age seen as a disadvantage? Would they have been better waiting till they were 18 to apply?

Gfrnn- dontou think that early admission to university is a good thing for the child concerned?

Would have been very happy at an accelerated GCSE for DS, but not early entry university (unless there was a specific under 16 program).

@MumTryingHerBest "Yasha Ayari Asley - He is now home schooled"
Where did you get that idea from? The link I provided showed he'd already graduated with a first class degree and was starting a PhD. Look up the Leicester uni maths dept website and you'll see he's listed as a PhD student.

@NobleGiraffe

I drew attention to the fact that the vast majority of under 18's were from overseas. Most are from outside the EU. The intake of under 18's is therefore fundamentally different in its geographic makeup than the 18+ students, who are overwhelmingly home/UK based. The overseas acceptance rate of around 11% is far lower than the home acceptance rate of around 30%. The acceptance rates of the under 18 population and the general overseas population from which it is overwhelmingly drawn are not significantly different. Geographic origin therefore accounts for the difference in acceptance rates. There is no evidence in the data that age is a significant factor.
As to why that might be so, one could conjecture that overseas students will have more diverse qualifications than home ones, don't have local advice on whether they stand a realistic chance of acceptance, and may also face funding, visa and English language requirements that provide a barrier to entry so it's hardly surprising that there's a difference based on geography.

@BertrandRussell
"I don't know much about maths but it sounds soul destroying and completely pointless. Surely there's more interesting maths than that?"

A large part of GCSE is Euclidean geometry. The real Bertrand Russell wrote "At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as tutor. This was one of the great events of my life, as dazzling as first love. I had not imagined there was anything so delicious in the world."
Does that shed any light on it for you?

"How does going to University before you are old enough to do anything except the work benefit the child at all?"

How does it benefit an exceptionally advanced teenager to stay in a secondary school when they have exhausted what it can provide and the staff have nothing left to offer them?
Why do you assume they're not old enough to do anything except the work?
Can't you think of some 16 year olds who are more mature than some 18 year olds?

Don't you think that the idea that at 17 you're still a child and belong only in school but at 18 you're a fully fledged grown-up and ready for university is a tad arbitrary?
Can you perhaps concede that in some cases people might need different things at different ages?
At the age of 16 you can join the army and get married. At 17 you can get a pilot's licence and fly a plane. Don't you think a few maths lectures is tame in comparison?
Has it occurred to you that they might actually enjoy the company of intellectual peers whose interests coincide with their own?

Bertrand Russell (with Whitehead) spent over 300 pages proving that 1+1=2 so his taste in maths is perhaps not to be trusted. But while I enjoy a good circle theorem question as much as the next maths teacher, I can’t imagine anyone describing your bog standard angles in parallel lines question as ‘delicious’.

I completely understand that there are gifted mathematicians who would benefit from high level mentoring. I do not accept that it is ever a good idea for that mentoring to be provided in a full time university setting when the student is too young to experience everything that university has to offer. And exhausting everything school has to offer? In all subjects? Or just maths?

gfrnn

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasha_Asley

He is now home schooled, the reason being that his father wasn't happy with his progress at Fullhurst.

gfrnn out of interest how did Yasha Ayari Asley do in all the other subjects. Most DCs study 9-11 GCSEs & 3-4 A Levels. It isn't clear if Yasha Ayari Asley achieved highly in any other subjects:

"His secondary school was Fullhurst Community College, where he was taught in lessons to prepare him for GCSE History, ICT and French while he still studied with his peers."

Whereas:

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4331048/Child-genius-university-s-youngest-employee.html

"He went straight to university after primary school"

"before winning his place to study degree level maths at just 12 years old in 2014."

Had he really sat and passed 9-11 GCSEs & 3-4 A Levels by the age of 12 or was he studying them whilst at University?

A few people have hinted at this rather strongly, but what good is an exceptional mathematician if they can't function in life and only sees themselves as mathematicians? With exceptional students, the hardest thing is to help them become emotionally strong, well balanced people who can function in society with a good sense of self. If you accelerate them through into university, what chance of them developing all of the non intellectual skills that are needed in life?

@MumTryingHerBest
I stated that he was radically accelerated, obtained a first and continued to doctoral research. All true.
You stated that he was "now home schooled". False.

Not everything on the internet is guaranteed to be up to date, and if a wikipedia article has a disclaimer at the top saying : This article needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (May 2014) then that is a red flag.

Ever, @BertrandRussell?
What about Norbert Wiener, who graduated from high school at 11 and had already done groundbreaking work in set theory and logic by the time he was awarded his PhD by Harvard at the age of 17 ? What do you think his secondary teachers could have taught him if he'd stayed at school for another 7 years? How would it have benefited him or society to keep him there until he'd sat every course in every subject? Would the world have been better served if, at 17, he had seen the error of his ways and gone back to high school for a year and perhaps dabbled in a bit of business studies and RE, rather than getting on with founding cybernetics and stochastic analysis?
Do you think perhaps having spent 6 years at universities including Cornell and Harvard , that he might feel a tad patronised?

What you are suggesting is that different standards should apply to the gifted students - that having attained at the level needed to progress to higher education, rather than being allowed to progress in their subjects of choice and interest like other students, they should be compelled to take subjects that may be no interest to them purely to keep them in a secondary level education that is no longer relevant to them. If they want to take more secondary level courses that should be their choice. But if they have the qualifications to go to university and want to go, why should they be prevented purely on the grounds of age?
What you are suggesting is both age discrimination and discrimination against excellence - you might want to read the section in that article on education's responsibility to the highly gifted.

Blimey- do you have a Norbert Wiener in your family? Even if you do, is it remotely sensible to talk about someone born in the 19th century when deciding the best way to educate them?

Any examples of British children dual enrolled at school and uni in the last 25 years?

I do find it incredibly frustrating to have someone come on a thread and post lengthily about how bright kids should be radically accelerated and not actually have any solid, recent, practical advice as to how to go about this.

The overseas acceptance rate of around 11% is far lower than the home acceptance rate of around 30%. The acceptance rates of the under 18 population and the general overseas population from which it is overwhelmingly drawn are not significantly different. Geographic origin therefore accounts for the difference in acceptance rates. There is no evidence in the data that age is a significant factor.

I think you must be reading different figures. The overseas acceptance rate that I saw was 14.2% for Cambridge. The under-18 acceptance rate was 11.9%. Even if the vast majority of under-18s are from overseas, it does look like youngsters are less likely to be accepted than 18 year olds.

Given that these youngsters have been accelerated because they are supposedly fantastically brighter than the surrounding population, you’d expect the acceptance rate to the top university for maths to be higher than the norm. Unless their age or education was a disadvantage.

And absolutely no acknowledgement of the social issues around radically accelerating a child. University when you can't live independently. go to the pub, have sex, break away from family and the place you were born........

they should be compelled to take subjects that may be no interest to them purely to keep them in a secondary level education that is no longer relevant to them

Do you genuinely believe that it is acceptable for a child who is gifted in a single area (whether that be Maths, Science, Computing, Dance, Music, Sport) should receive no education at all in any other subjects than their subject of strength, and have no contact within their education with their age peers?

Is it acceptable for a gifted 11 year old dancer to go to the royal ballet school and have no education in other subjects at all? Or a musician to Chetham's or the Royal academy but have no academic educion? Or a computer scientist go to university at 12 or 13 but study no other subjects? Why do you think it is acceptable for a mathematician to go to university to study only Maths at an early age but have no other academic education?

What you are suggesting is that different standards should apply to the gifted students - that having attained at the level needed to progress to higher education, rather than being allowed to progress in their subjects of choice and interest like other students, they should be compelled to take subjects that may be no interest to them purely to keep them in a secondary level education that is no longer relevant to them. If they want to take more secondary level courses that should be their choice.

Aren't you suggesting different standards for gifted students?
There are plenty of students in secondary schools who are compelled to take