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.

As I said-one of mine could have made a reasonable stab at an English GCSE in year 7. Fortunately, nobody suggested it.

Just I wonder if your DD’s school hasn’t realised yet. Not many schools can afford to throw away a guaranteed pass in English and Maths.

I asked if she could do a test and the school said it was teacher assessment only.

So they let her prepare for the maths GCSE but wouldn't let her do any past papers?

Thinking about it a bit more, Just is she sitting AS level maths at all or just A-level? AS counts as maths in the league tables, but A-level, as far as I can see, doesn’t. Which is a bit weird really.

I think this whole discussion is odd - even though I was an accelerated child (year accelerated and did O-level maths a year early, so was 14 when I took it and 15 when I took Additional Maths).

It assumes that 'Maths' is a single defined route, a single line across the map which joins the dots of 'GCSE syllabus' / 'Further Maths GCSE syllabus' / 'A level syllabus' and there is no other Maths at all that could possibly be done.

Whereas Maths is a landscape, across which different curricula over the years have stalked particular routes, some well-trodden, other slight byways, but of which much is entirely accessible but infrequently explored. One of my primary teachers chose to teach us all symbolic logic, for example, and I vividly remember the four colour theorem in topology, again explored in primary, which my children have never encountered.

Mathematically able children, especially really young children, deserve a mathematical education that explores this accessible and intriguing landscape widely, rather than whizzing down the 'curriculum highway' without even enough time to look out of the windows...

(I was also introduced in early secondary to Polyhedron Models, a genuinely wonderful book about one of maths' entertaining byways, much accessible to anyone who can handle a craft knife and card)

whizzing down the 'curriculum highway' without even enough time to look out of the windows...

I don't think whizzing is a word I would use if it takes 6 years to do something that should take two.

NRTFT but is your SIL telling the truth? Maybe the child is just practising? I'd be sceptical of her claims/understanding.

When my son started y7 his school threw in some GCSE questions into a test - scores came out low for all. Apparently they do this every year and scores get better as they get older and closer to real GCSEs.

Well, yes, Mum: so whizzing along the highway (through interesting and varied landscape) then stuck in a traffic jam, inching along the same highway but very slowly, still not looking at the landscape. Just bizarre, if anyone has any understanding of the education of 'genuine mathematicians'.

People don’t generally realise that pretty much all primary school and KS3 maths (with the exception of Roman numerals and isometric drawing that I can think of) is also GCSE maths. An old National Curriculum level 6 was roughly equivalent to a GCSE old grade D. About the same content, just a different style of question paper.

I don't think whizzing is a word I would use if it takes 6 years to do something that should take two.

It is not 6 years and I have said dd is happy now she is doing A level. You seem bitter about all this. I am having difficulty understanding why, if you think I am making a mistake and you are happy with the course you have chosen, why you see the need for such negative and derogatory comments.

You seem bitter about all this.

I'm not bitter, I just don't understand the logic behind what you have done.

I would find it odd that someone can take GCSE so early, claiming to be so very frustrated and bored, but then find a very slow progress through the A-level syllabus so satisfying? Is it that it is 'the status' of it being A-lecel work that means she finds it 'OK', because she knows she has positive proof that she is seen to be 'good at maths', and therefore though the current slow progress is boring, it remains satisfying in a self-esteem sense? or has the pace of her gaining mathematical understanding genuinely slowed because she is now having to 'learn maths' rather than just 'do maths which seems fairly obvious to her'? [DS has encountered this in the GCSE - A-level shift: the maths is no longer obvious, and he has to learn it in the same way as he has to learn other subjects, rather than just 'd' it]

An A level student typically divides their time between 4 subjects. A KS3 student typically divides their time between 12 or more.
If you can't see that there's a difference between dividing by 4 and dividing by 12 then it suggests you're ... not very good at maths.

But - having encountered one or two genuinely extraordinary young mathematicians - a genuinely able one would not need the standard amount of time to do A level maths in. Much of an A-level maths class, for them, would be 'not particularly learning new stuff time'

So having fewer lessons but being able to learn at their own pace would tend to mean at least the same rate of progress as normal A-levels, possibly faster. Certainly not slower, unless the rate of progress has definitely slowed because the child has reached the point of 'genuinely having to learn new stuff'.

Our A-level students have 9 hours of lessons a fortnight, our KS3 students have 8 hours of maths a fortnight. It’s not so massively different that you’d expect the pace of learning to fall dramatically, especially as our brightest students don’t tend to have to put that much effort in out of lessons.

gfrnn I admit I'm not a maths person. Perhaps you can tell me how much time would be spent studying maths throughout KS3&KS4 compared to the number of hours of maths study for 6th form.

Noble, you said that much more succinctly than me! I would also say that a really able mathematician is probably actively learning for less than those 9 hours a week, because some of that time will be spent explaining / teaching concepts to others who get it more slowly. So an able child working for 8 hours a week should easily maintain the same pace through the A-level syllabus if of the appropriate ability.

I'm not bitter, I just don't understand the logic behind what you have done.

I have explained why. I do not think reiteration will help.

cantkeepawayforever, A level maths is more challenging. She is also doing so many other subjects to greater depth than in primary and I want her to have a broad education so she can decide what she wants to do. Her school has also been excellent in offering sideways study in maths. She is only bothered about being recognised as being good at maths insofar as it means she will then not be asked to go over things she already knows.

To clarify, dd studies around a dozen subjects, one of which is maths. I do not know and do not care if she is a "really able mathematician". I want her to enjoy learning and learn at the top of the potential she is capable of learning at.

"One of my primary teachers chose to teach us all symbolic logic, for example, and I vividly remember the four colour theorem in topology, again explored in primary, which my children have never encountered."

What a lovely idea. There are about 16,000 primary schools in the UK. So all we need to do to roll this out is to suggest it to the 16,000 or more primary teachers (at least one in each school) with sufficient expertise to teach symbolic logic and topology.

Do you see the problem yet? Primary teachers have enough trouble teaching standard KS3 maths. Some of them probably have trouble teaching KS2 because the highest qualification they have in maths is a dimly remembered C at GCSE. But at least with the standard KS3 and KS4 curriculum they can easily find resources, they've probably covered it at some point in their own education, and they can probably find a colleague who can help if they get stuck.

and as for " I vividly remember the four colour theorem in topology, again explored in primary", given that it wasn't proved until 1976 and that the computer-assisted proof was considered so complex that it was infeasible for a human to check by hand, i rather suspect what you mean is that someone gave you a map and you did some colouring in.

Wow, well that's confirmed it. My SIL is a bit batshit for putting my nephew in for GCSEs.

Middle, it's true. He's sitting a mock this year at the local secondary apparently. She's been very clever and arranged it.

I have reached the conclusion that the new GCSE is providing the stretch that is required for the vast majority of students and particularly gifted children should be challenged in other areas inside and outside the curriculum, with the benefit of sitting exams early weighed against all the disadvantages listed here.

I wonder how these early sitters perform in terms of outcomes - university, relationships, life satisfaction etc.

I wonder how these early sitters perform in terms of outcomes - university, relationships, life satisfaction etc.

Wonder no longer. Gfmn has given a list of such people on the previous page.

gfrnn linked to a study from the Netherlands which said “Accelerated students had a lower social status than nonaccelerants and were considered to be less cooperative, humorous, helpful, leading, and social. peer ratings were more negative for accelerated boys than for accelerated girls.“

So it’s not all plain sailing.

I've just read that link now, ta. Confirmation that the odd one will benefit from acceleration.