A level Further Maths

[Strawberrycocktail]

Is Further Maths at A level normally timetabled separately from Maths A level (ie with its own number of hours of teaching time) or is it normally taught at the same time as Maths A level, hence intensifying the teaching time and requiring more independent work from pupils doing both A levels?

DS is doing maths and further maths. He is the only one doing further maths so they are giving him 1-2-1 lessons. He has both maths and further maths lessons each week.

My DD is doing FM- they have double maths this year , with 2 teachers, to cover the whole of A level maths in one year. Then they decide if they want to do the FM in the second year or stick with just A level and use the second year to revise. I expect other colleges do their own thing.

Cathpot, do you mean they spend double the time in maths lessons this year to do maths A level in a year
. And then, may decide to do Further Maths in year 2 with 2 A levels’ worth of teaching time?

In our school , similar to above they cover the whole a-level content in the first year. They are in all the 'normal' a level lessons - where they cover the AS content , and have additional further maths lessons - where they cover the A2 content. (This is a little awkward as so much of it relies on content which hasn't already been covered.) We are a small college so have to do it this way.
In second year they do the further maths A-Level - for which they have (just under) double the teaching time single A-levels get.

In answer your question - there is approximately twice as much teaching time , and twice as much homework- as it's two A-Levels.

That being said, further maths students should be able to complete the homework much faster for normal a-level maths than most students - saving some time.

I’m a Maths teacher, and I’d say it depends on the school.

In one place Double Maths (Maths and F Maths) was taught on the same number of periods as Single Maths in the L6 (y12) but in a separate set which just went fast. In the U6 they may have had 2 more lessons each week, I can’t quite remember.

When I was at school we did Maths with everyone else and the Further content separately, so twice as many lessons as a single A level.

I’ve also worked somewhere where Double Maths students were taught separately on 1.5 times the number of lessons as Single Maths students.

Some used to say Double Maths and Physics should only count as 2.5 A levels because of the overlap between subjects, but I haven’t heard that recently.

Everywhere I’ve worked has had two teachers for each A level subject, unless it was a minority Sixth-form-only subject with only one teacher in school.

my DD is at a sixth form college and further maths is timetabled separately with a different tutor to her maths course. Same amount of lessons for each.

It varies by setting. A lot of schools, including some we looked at, only add on a couple of lessons for FM and expect it to be a fourth A level.

DS2's school timetable it separately with a full complement of lessons each week, and (starting I think with DS2's year) moved towards it being one of three A levels (obvs with maths). DS was going to do PE, maths and FM, tho in the end he did something different. But even then, all but one of the six taking FM did take four A levels.

Thank you for the insights! In my DS”s school they do further maths in the same lesson time as maths but in separate sets going extra fast. Iwas curious to see if most schools did this. It looks like it varies but many allow at least some extra teaching time for further maths, some a lot more teaching time! This looks like it may be a big differentiator between schools for those interested in further maths A level. My son is interested in Further Maths A level but we are a little worried that it is taught more intensively with Maths as my son qualifies for extra time in exams owing to slow processing scores! He needs further maths if he is to apply for some physics courses at university. However, judging by the resonses here so far, it looks like something we could consider is choosing between staying at his school for sixth form without doing Further Maths and going elsewhere to do Further Maths!

I don’t know what it’s like now but when I did it we started our maths a level with the ones just doing that. We also had the same amount of timetable given to further maths, however, that lesson was mixed y12 and y13 so only taught half of it. I think this was because there were only three in our year, two in year above and then four in year below.
At some point in the single maths a level we went past the level of the normal group. There was a side room just off the normal classroom so we worked on there.
In reality all of this plus the difficulty level of further maths meant we needed to be very self reliant. If we got stuck we asked each other first, then pulled out the handwritten answers and only then asked the teacher to help. I think this made it easier to adapt to university where you have to be self motivated.

DS1 did both at our local school 6th form and has just gone to Durham uni to study Maths. His 6th form did maths in Year 12 and started the further maths syllabus at the end of year 12 into year 13. Lessons were double the time of single maths.

DS2 has just started A levels at a specialist Maths 6th form where all students do Maths and Further Maths. His timetable has had lessons from the start called Maths and Further Maths. He says the lessons don't strictly follow those syllabi separately. In addition, they cover some non A level syllabus Maths such as STEP questions and preparation for Maths Challenges within their lessons.

In response to your comment about extra time, DS1 is dyslexic and got 25% extra time for both GCSEs and A levels. He ended up with A stars for Maths, Further Maths and Physics and A for Computer Science.

@Strawberrycocktail Ds's sixth form have 4 1/2 hours contact time per subject. As Ds2 is taking 4 A levels including FM he has 4 subject time slots, so 50% of his timetable is maths although it is listed as maths and further maths to distinguish between the two teachers. So 9 hours per week for maths, 4 1/2 each for his 2 other subjects. Maths isn't taught more intensely as they are given the same contact time for the whole of maths A level but they just do it all in year 12 rather than half in year 12 and half in year 13. He still has free periods and no EPQ.

They are taught the whole of maths A level content in year 12 and then they move onto FM. At the end of year 12 they have the option to continue in the FM stream or move into the normal A level maths stream and technically repeat what they covered for maths. Ds1 also took both maths and FM. He is now at uni and has needed FM for uni work, not physics though. He says he feels that doing all maths content in year 12 worked really well for him, then extend that knowledge with FM once you have the foundational knowledge down.

Even though they only cover maths content in year 12 they are given a predicted grade for FM based on their maths performance. So for Ds2 he achieved A star in year 12 exams plus tests across the year, homework etc so his predicted FM grade is also an A star. If his maths grade had been an A then they predict FM grade 1 grade below, so a B.

I don't know what your son's aspirations are but if he is looking at top level universities for Physics then FM is beneficial. A lot of applicants will have it and he needs to look competitive against them. HTH.

Ds is in a large sixth form college, about 2000 kids, and he does Maths and Further Maths. He has four classes of each in a week.

Thank you for more shared knowledge. Would I be right in thinking that those doing all the Maths A level syllabus in L6 followed by Further Maths A level syllabus in U6 (year 13) would find Maths A level easier because the finish the syllabus a year ahead then spend a year building on it and using it in Further Maths? If so that must make it more likely to get a top grade in A level Maths and those doing just Maths A level over 2 years are competing for top grades with the Further Maths pupils who have completed the syllabus a year earlier and been building on it ever since!

I sat both maths and further maths exams in the same sitting. The maths A level was therefore extremely easy. I finished the paper in about half the time and obviously got the top grade. I don’t think this skews things massively though as so few take fm. There is more of a disadvantage for language students who are completing against people who grow up speaking two languages.

At my son's school they did "normal" A level Maths in year 12 and then FM in year 13, anyone really struggling in year 12 didn't take the A level at end of year 12 and joined the normal 2 year A level Maths classes during year 13 instead and did their normal A level Maths at end of year 13.

dd has 5 hours per week per subject. She takes maths and FM and therefore has 10 hours of maths lessons per week. In year 12 they completed the a level syllabus and first 4/5 topics of FM. They take both maths a levels at end of year 13 and you are correct in that a level maths seems pretty easy when you take FM too. Also pupils taking FM also tend to participate in maths Olympiads and competitions which further develops their skills.

My school treats them as two separate A-levels with different timetabled classes of equal time, and they sit both at the end of Y13, so we teach in parallel, not one after the other.

Our entry requirement is a 7. I’m wondering if these schools who cram it into the same teaching time as one A-level have higher entry requirements? I’ve seen some schools require a 9 which makes more sense if they’re not teaching it properly. This does, however, exclude some pupils who would be capable of taking it if it were fully taught, or didn’t take away from a-level teaching time.

We encourage it as a 4th, and some who struggle take the AS at the end of Y12 and then drop it so have something to show for it.

Further maths is a difficult A level, I think if you only get a 7 at gcse (unless extenuating circumstances) you shouldn’t be doing further maths A level.

The entry grade was 7 for maths and an 8 for FM at my ds's school. Even then, in the first few weeks, after testing, they recommended that a few of the kids might be better off dropping FM - which seems a little brutal.

The FM course is structured so that the kids who find the course load arduous can walk away with an AS level in the subject and can drop the subject in the second year.

@Strawberrycocktail I think you are right in that FM deepens the understanding of maths so maybe it is easier to get a higher grade than those just on the maths only route. Agree or disagree noble?

At my son's sixth form you need a 6 to take maths and a 7 to take FM which does potentially mean that those wanting to do FM are denied if they don't get the 7. They are strict on both the maths and FM entry grades.

Very interesting @noblegiraffe that you teach it in parallel. Do you feel it is better that way? Have you ever taught it the other way, one after another?

I’ve never taught them one after the other and it is a bit of a pain that some FM content assumes that you’ve already learned Y13 A-level content, so sometimes we have to teach them a bit of A-level early to be able to do the FM (like you need to be able to resolve forces for FM Y12 content but it’s not taught till Y13 A-level) but I think I’d rather teach them in parallel as you don’t have the issue of cramming an A-level into 1 year and then not taking the exam for another year. It’s dodgy to take the A-level early, but you would forget a lot if left for a year.

Then you’ve got the kids who decide against FM who have to spend Y13 ‘revising’ A-level that they have already been taught.

The opportunity to take AS FM seems lost as well if you cram the whole thing into a year.

It’s probably fine for those who sail through A-level and are fine with FM but for those who don’t it seems to throw up logistical issues.

Also, we definitely need the full allocation of teaching time for Further Maths- it’s a full A-level. I don’t understand these schools that squeeze it in half the time!

It's taught as two separate subjects in my DD's school, both have two teachers and the same amount of time in the timetable. She is Year 12 and weirdly finding Further Maths a lot easier than Maths at the moment, but I assume that FM will get harder soon!

DS1 started in 6th form last month, and was dithering between a school with an expanded 6th form which markets quite heavily to recruit external students, and a standalone 6th form college - he'd applied to and had offers for 5 places (in total!) to do Maths, FM, Physics and Philosophy.

Not sure about the other 3 but the two he was torn between both do Maths this year and FM next year. Apparently most students in his 6th form start with 4 A levels and they can drop one at the end of year 12, but parents have had an email saying that they expect students in Maths and FM to stick with the 4.

I think both require 7 for Maths and an 8 for FM, and that seemed to be normal for the other places he'd applied to. The college wants an average of 7.5 in the 8 best GCSEs to do 4 A levels, though quite a lot of their students (other than those doing FM) do 3 A levels anyway, and generally results are quite good.

I can see the potential logistic problems that you mention though, @noblegiraffe.

We have a tutor review meeting online this week, though I'm wondering what it means that they've cut the meetings from 14 minutes to 9 - I understand they've taken in more 6th form students for some time but did they suddenly expand a lot this year?