GCSE '18s (19) - New Beginnings?

[whistl]

Following on from the GCSE 2018 threads as our DC enter year 12.
This the first thread in our new home in further education

Its shows tremendous resilience already to stick at a question for an hour. I'm sure mine would take a look and give up if they didn't think they could do it - good for him.

I understand it is usual to struggle and appear to be going backwards when starting A levels.

Terf I obviously can’t speak for every private school but I can say that DS’s school (highly selective, great results yadda yadda yadda) definitely didn’t take the ad maths DC beyond the syllabus. By no means all of those that sat it got an A (in fact, amongst DS’s friends, the majority didn’t.)

Interesting that there are so many maths wobbles on here, I haven’t heard anyone mention eg a History wobble from the point of view of struggling with the difficulty rather than deciding it isn’t for them. Maybe we could ask @noblegiraffe for her perspective? Is this normal noble or is the maths ‘ceiling’ a thing? How long do you think a DC should stick it out before deciding to switch - my DS has started with 3 A Levels and will have to make a decision soon?

Cherry mist if the maths DC on here (tho not becessarily all and not mine) are grade 9 candidates with ukmt awards. I wouldn’t have thought they should be worrying about the ceiling or that maths isn’t for them. More likely picking up after a summer off, different teaching styles and content, being stretched for the first time and being with more equal peers.

I have the opposite worry in that DS says it’s fine but is ever the optimist. Hopefully first report card next week may give some clue.

He is enjoying his subjects though so is certain he has picked the right ones which is great (had quantum computer science on the way in this morning - loose can we swap !!). I’m just not sure he s clocked how much work he will need to do to succeed in spite of his huge efforts to crack the gcse s. That seems to be forgotten now.

His school not doing much for equality either - 3 of his sets are all boys and the fourth has one girl. The school overall is 3 girls to every 4 boys so that seems a bit exceptional.

Oratory I realise that a lot of the DC on here are really talented in maths and the step up to A Level will be fine for them. But as you say, it’s not all of them, and I just thought that as there are a few of us whose DC are wobbling it might be helpful to get noble’s perspective.

Cherryburn I don't have Noble's experience and deep knowledge but I do know from first hand experience that the maths ceiling is real.

I doubt that many DC who were good enough at maths to choose it less than a month ago, have now hit the ceiling, but it does exist. Hopefully, most will not find that they've hit it when still at school at all. Those who are struggling are very likely to just be rusty. With effort, they will get past this and look back at the work they did in September 2018 and think it was easy.

I hope I haven’t given the impression that I think the DC on this thread who are very talented at maths are anywhere near their ceiling. Obviously they won’t be.

I was thinking of the DC who have done well at GCSE but aren’t brilliant at it and for whom Maths A Level was just one of a number of possible choices. I think it’s well known that it is hard and a big step up from gcse, particularly if they haven’t done ad maths of any kind. There’s a small window to decide to switch to something else, and DS is thinking about it (and I think others are too.) noble teaches A Level so I thought her perspective would be useful, but I’m quite happy to start another thread if it was inappropriate to ask on here

Not at all Cherryburn, perfectly valid question/statement for here. I was just trying to say there seem to be even natural mathematicians having wobbles but many seem to struggle with A levels at the start and then 'take off' again when it starts to fall in to place - that seems to have been the natural cycle for a while. It would be a shame if those a bit rusty or struggling at the start switch out too soon now that the 'start with four and drop pone' makes it more usual to switch early. DS has lost a few from further maths and physics already. Hopefully the teachers will be able to advise and separate those hitting a ceiling from those just taking a while to adjust.

I have seen both. DD1 was a maths/science student. DD2 was definitely a humanities student who found gcse maths and sciences easy through being generally bright and hard working but found IB standard level maths and physics quite tough - definitely her 'ceiling'.

I have yet to find out where DS comes as his dyslexia muddies the water a bit (well a lot !).

Please don't feel you need to ask the question elsewhere, CherryBurn. I didn't think your comments were aimed at a particular subset of DC, because they obviously weren't!

The students who did well at GCSE but aren't suitable for A level, are those who had to be strategic about what they studied in maths, and then rely on the grade boundaries to see them through.
In particular, if you always found algebra difficult and probably dropped algebra marks right left and centre on algebra at GCSE, but picked points up elsewhere by practicing the other types of maths until you had perfected them, then maths A level is going to be a struggle and it might be a good time to re-consider taking it.

DS got a 9 in maths - just. He was struggling last week - surds again. As his heàd teacher said at a talk last week with 61% being what you need to achieve an 8 you can get 39% wrong still to stillget an old A. That 39% is likely to be the trickier stuff so you could get an A (equiv) by knowing "standard stuff". They also pointed out the stats showing how unlikely it would be to get an A or higher at A level based on what grades, so even if you had a 7 it was highly likely that you would not achieve higher than a B at A level and a high proportion of 8/9s won't achieve A/A* at A level. I was hoping they were going to email all this as sometimes they do after school talks.

Conversely an A*/8/9 at history gcse had a far greater proportion of candidates achieving the same at A level.

I am glad DS had the opportunity to chose 4. He chose maths to keep the option of economics degree open but now says he wants to do history so will more than likely be dropping maths to do history, Economics and Geography which he believes will mean he can achieve a higher grade over these 3 rather than worrying Maths will prevent him going to a better uni by possibly ending up as a B or lower.

My dd is doing both maths and further maths. She got a 9 at GCSE but only by 2 marks. In total she did 4 hours of revision all year. (Compared to 50 hrs of English)

She's finding the normal maths well within her capabilities but is having to apply herself to FM already. The first time in her life she's found maths a struggle. She's managing to figure it out so far but it's only week one!

She's not sure if she will keep going with it (4th A level) but at least the others will seem easy in comparison

I'd also be interested in noble' s view on a ceiling. Also on how kids fare when they've always coasted.

Did gym, feeling smug
I think maths wobbles have a lot to do with not having done any for 10-12 weeks. DS gets frustrated when he doesn't get it instantly. Once he's understood it he's happy again. Also I don't think it hurts him to have to work at it as it'll be more rewarding. If he really can't do it, that's a different thing.
Whistl imaginary numbers could be it - that does ring a bell.
History A level is tough but it's too early in the term for wobbles - that comes later!
Oratory we could swap but I fear DS might drive you over the edge!

DS's new school blends the teaching of maths and further maths, so it is never clear whether what you are doing will be in the FM paper, or the maths paper. Instead they subdivide the timetable by sub-area of maths eg statistics, mechanics etc.
I think it's a good system. DS is having to work in maths classes now (which is a big change on last year), but its ok. I think he much prefers the faster pace.

I've just thought of another question.

My dd has been given "target" grades already. Presumably these are different to predicted grades used on UCAS forms.

She has been given B,B,A/B,B/C. The B/C is for FM I think.

In my day a haul of BBBC inc maths and FM would have been great but now most unis want A* and A.

Is doing FM more likely to bring the maths up to an A or take time away and bring the grade down?

LooseAtTheSeams I think imaginary numbers are the first time that maths is mind-bending. You have to imagine that a number exists even though you can never point at it and say "there it is". When you get past fighting against that though, it is easy again, but you do have to get past it and until you do, it seems impossible. Don't let him despair: it will fall into place.
There will be more mind-bending things like this to come eg 4-dimensional space, 5-dimensional,...,n-dimensional, infinity etc

Kick I'd have thought up, unless she struggles with FM so much that she spreads herself so thin she doesn't even have time to master the A level stuff.

Whistl that sounds like a good system and based round the subject, not just teaching for the exams.
It's too early for grade predictions. From what I've heard grades can be pretty low at the start of Y12 and bear no relation at all to final results!

Agree Loose grades will be very low at the start. Some may have targets though based on Allis (similar to MIDYIS for year gcse) but they are a very crude measure so wouldn't put too much stall by them - though they do perhaps identify the DC who perhaps aren't fulfilling potential.

I was wondering about that too kick. DS thought it would help his maths initially but if he really starts to struggle he will drop it and also may not take the exam if he thinks it will be low or will affect final practise for the other three. For eg BBB will be better than BBCC or even BBBC. Also you say Unis want A's but that's only the top ones there are plenty that offer on Bs.

KickBishop was that based on ALIS or gcse raw marks or a combination?

Victory over School From Hell!
After my VERY strongly worded email to the new Headteacher it appears the school will be paying for DD's German remark.

SFH:Nil, Jufus:1 HAHAHAAA!

Yay !! Double bonus if it goes up too !! But either way at least you will know you have done everything rather than always wondering.

Jufus well done on your victory! Good luck and hope grade goes up for your dd.

DS2 is fine with the Maths, Physics and Chemistry they've thrown at him so far.

On the other hand, if he were doing A-levels in English or History, we'd be having a lot more than a wobble by now.

Predicted grades already?? Last week DD seems to have done some kind of IQ tests then they combine this with their GCSE grades and the October tests to get a prediction. They then use this to help them to decide which subject they should drop (if any). They also advocate 3 x A Levels and an EPQ.

DD also swapped Maths for Gov and Politics for the same reason as @ShalomJackie said. It wasn't too difficult (at the moment) but the chances of getting an A combined with the fact that she really doesn't enjoy it meant that it's wasn't sensible for her to do it. At DDs school you had to be 'Invited' to FM and out of the 8 girls invited only 1 decided to do it.

As far as I know she's the only maths wobbler at her school.