Further Maths GCSE

[AtreidesFreeWoman]

Hi,

Hope someone can help.

DS is a gifted mathematician - not my assessment , but his teachers.

The issue is he would really like to sit the further maths GCSE but his school have stopped offering it.

He's already doing 10 GCSE's but is really keen to do this - just trying to be clear that this is driven by him and not the result of any pushing from DH or myself.

He's just had his mocks and got 100% on the test standard maths paper.

So my question- has anyone arranged for their child to sit further Maths privately and what's the best way of doing this?

Subscribing to an online course? Or just booking the exam (how?) and providing him with them relevant books wrt the subject (he would read them - he's currently reading A Level Physics for "fun").

Any help much appreciated.

I'll start off the replies:

With my Home Ed hat on - you need to find an exam Centre that will allow your son to sit the exam. His current school would be the best place to ask. They likely have other kids taking native language GCSEs as external candidates, so might me willing to accept your son taking his FM exam there. If they say no, then the Home Ed Exams Wiki has a list of exam centres around the country http://he-exams.wikia.com/wiki/Findingannexamcentree_

With my Maths teacher and Home Ed hats on - which Further Maths Qualification were you thinking of him taking? Edexcel IGCSE Further Pure Maths? OCR FSMQ? AQA Further Maths Certificate? More info on these here _

http://he-exams.wikia.com/wiki/Furtherr_andAdditionall_Maths

The AQA one is the easiest one and the Edexcel one is the hardest.

With my parent hat on - 2 of my own kids did the Edexcel Further Pure Maths. One got an A Star and the other a C. It wasn't easy, even though they had timetabled lessons at school. The school got them to take the course, more to expose them to A-Level material. Only a few students actually sat the exam from their class. It definitely does help with A-Level. DD who got the C in Further Pure IGCSE, ended up with A star, A at A-Level in Maths, FM.

Hope that helps!

That's massively helpful - thank you.

I've obviously tried googling this but there's so much "noise" I thought I'd post here to try and get to the core of the issue as it were.

Tbh I hadn't even thought about which exam board - so your comments on that were very illuminating.

Thank you for taking the time to post - it's much appreciated

DD just did FM GCSE; she only started 4 months b4 exams. Working thru a textbook, almost completely self-study (they had one session/week ( lunch time) with the math teacher to ask questions). DD feels she did well on the exam & I don't think any of the others failed, all felt prepared.

They were all very good at math but nobody amazing at it. I wonder if OP's school would consider a programme like that.

@ragged we've already suggested that but apparently it's not possible.

No criticism of the school at all - they've been really good at supporting him overall, it's just about competing requirements tbh and this isn't top of the list.

If he can't do FM, why not do some extra olympiad maths as a challenge? Try Dr Frosts Maths, there are some excellent resources on his website, and your DS is obviously a great mathematician looking for a challenge, it doesn't have to be for a GCSE.

And Isaacphysics is the goto place for A level physics, lots of questions and stuff.

Thanks - he's already doing a Maths Challenge through the school though.

He also attended various maths seminars last summer.

As I said - this is at his instigation, not mine or DH's.

Simply put, he really enjoys it and wants to do this GCSE.

The irony is that if he'd been born a few months earlier he'd have been in the year group where it was still on offer.

As it is, his is the first year the school haven't offered it. I think that's part of the issue in that he'd always assumed it was something he'd be able to do via normal academic channels as it were.

Maths challenge is an annual competition with lots of DCs getting gold, silver etc awards, but for the top mathematicians there are follow up events and more national and even international maths competitions. If your DS is a good mathematician he should be getting through to the olympiads which go on throughout the school year. If he isn't at the moment it may be because he hasn't had enough practice/training, mathematicians take these competitions very seriously. Do have a look at the UKMT site, it is an excellent opportunity for a gifted mathematician to shine.

Thanks @cakeisalwaystheanswer - I'll do that!

I tutor maths for students usually doing A-level/STEP. Plenty of my students have self-taught further maths GCSE (usually because they're transferring to a different school which requires it for top set A-level) - most of them managed it in much less than a year. I think it's a great idea to do this as it gets them used to being independent (something that is massively lacking in UK schools). There is absolutely no reason someone who is good at maths needs anything more than a textbook to cover this. He could also use online forum's e.g. student room.
The ability to learn independently is a massive bonus for university. If he's good at maths it won't pose a problem for him at all.

I also agree that maths challenge is better than further maths GCSE (which is really just the first bits of A-level) for gifted mathematicians. Look at summer courses in London e.g. SMP if that's financially viable.

Just to add something -he's at a great age to just learn stuff because he wants to learn stuff rather than because it happens to be on the syllabus for an exam. He should start reading around and find out what interests him - Machine learning? Set theory? Relativity? This is all great for personal statements and more importantly to actually encourage his interests and find out what he might like to do at uni. It's not too early.

He should also definitely learn to program if he can't already. Programming and maths are massively correlated in terms of ability and being good at both is a massive advantage. He could look at Euler problems (google it) to practise.

I don't think now that the further maths offers much over the standard new GCSE.

Dd1 did additional maths and she's said that those who did that did seem to be ahead at A-level in comparison to those whose schools did nothing or further maths.

Noble will be along shortly, I expect, to say if that's correct.

I don’t know much about additional maths as I’ve never taught it but it is a harder qualification than further maths (level 3 as opposed to GCSE) so probably would be better for A-level. It may be harder to self-teach though.

I’m a big fan of AQA Further Maths, I think it’s a great qualification. This textbook is good and a gifted mathematician could probably teach themselves from it and from these resources : mrbartonmaths.com/students/aqa-level-2-certificate-in-further-mathematics/
If his school has taught it in the past then he could always ask for help if he gets stuck.

The school should be able to enter an individual student for Further maths - the problem is that the exams are held at the end of exam season and if he’s the only kid doing it, they’d need a room and invigilator - you could offer to pay for this?

I agree with Witchend that the Further Maths GCSE is not worth the time and effort for the bright kids. GCSE Maths is challenging enough. If they want something harder than Add Maths is recommended. If they really want a challenge then they could try to get to the Olympiad round of the Maths Challenge and do well in it.

Noooo GHGN, I love Further Maths. I find the papers quite fun where GCSE is a bit of a drag.

I agree that 3 long papers is such an overkill. However, there is too much overlapping content between Further Maths GCSE and normal GCSE. That’s why I prefer Add Maths where I had to teach so many new topics. However, I teach in selective schools so my view will be slightly different to yours.