Further Maths as third A level

[FirstDaysOfSpring]

Is this ok if you know you want to do a maths degree?

Maths
Further Maths
Physics

Opinions may vary 😀

Thanks for positing.

DS is considering 4 a levels.

Maths, chemistry and economics. Really wants to do Further Maths as the 4th - I'm just conscious of the work load.

I’m pretty sure - but I am going to check - they need an 8 to do further maths - I just accepted it at the time but after reading this thread it does sound batshit

Whatever the school says, you need a 9 to do further maths. It is a very strange A Level in that it’s hard to be “quite good” at it. Most kids who get a 7 or 8 in a subject at GCSE have a decent shot at a B or even A at A Level. Not Further Maths. It stretches the most capable kids, and if you’ve not quite nailed the GCSE syllabus, it’s very unlikely you will get a top grade.

Thank you so much everyone. All of the information you have given is really helpful.

One of my DC chose the same subjects along with Chemistry. Was adamant that maths was their thing and got 9s at GCSE maths/further maths along with consistently getting through to the higher rounds of UKMT competitions.

Found A-Level Further Maths incredibly hard - it was several steps up, even from A-Level Maths. Fortunately with good teaching and timetabling they did really well but it was a massive shock to someone who had coasted through all maths up until Y12. At one point was considering a Chemistry degree as they enjoyed that far more in 6th Form than they had previously.

So yes, those three A-Levels are perfectly fine for a maths degree but adding a 4th, even for a year, keeps some options open a little longer.

Eeekkk. Dd1 got a 9 in gcse maths. Has struggled with a level but predicted and A.

dd2 got a 9 in maths and an 8 in FM but 5 marks off a 9. She doesn’t seem to be struggling and consistently highest marks in class. I hope this is enough for her…

The 'success gradient' with Maths and FM is steep ie on average, you need higher grades at GCSE to be likely to secure a good outcome at A level. FM is stretching; the clue, after all, is in the word 'Further'.

However, I think we need to be careful not to be too deterministic or rigid about prior GCSE grades. My DC secured 8s at Maths GCSE but both went on to achieve solid As in FM (as fourth subjects) and enjoyed the experience along the way. By contrast, a number of '9 with FM GCSE Maths as well' students hit a wall in Y12 with FM and dropped it.

So a lot depends on whether you are accelerating into your maths potential or perhaps someone who found GCSE maths easy without really trying and actually your maths 'ceiling' is lurking just around the corner.

All this uncertainty means it is foolish to start FM as a third subject, because there is no effective plan B. If all is going swimmingly in Y12 regards FM, then a different fourth subject can be dropped. Someone capable of doing FM should be able to cope with four subjects in Y12.

My kids school did this as an experiment,

it went very very badly.

nobody made it to the exam.

My DD, who is off to uni to study maths, breezed GCSE maths. Her school didn’t offer GCSE further maths. She found A-level further maths a bit a shock during the first term of year 12 but after that seemed to settle into it and has loved y13 further maths despite it being another step up from the year 12 content. She’s doing 4 A-levels but to be honest she hardly counts maths A-level because doing further maths has made ‘normal’ maths seem so easy. I’d recommend starting with 4 and not being disheartened if the first term of FM is tough.

Very few oxbridge maths or engineering students will have only 3 a levels. Look at the actual ucas points successful applicants have

Our local schools and colleges (attended 5 open days) all said 3 A level options only were recommended. Consequently we are dropping further maths as it feels like too much similarity when also choosing maths and economics.

My DS1 did Maths, Further Maths and Physics and it was Physics that he really struggled with. My DS2 is doing Maths, Further Maths and Computer Science and is actually predicted a better grade in Further Maths (A) than in Maths (B).

When DS1 started university (studying Engineering) he found that he was way ahead of his peers in first year. I did a Maths degree with only A level Maths and, while Further Maths may have been useful, it definitely wasn’t necessary.

Some schools recommend only doing three A levels as it’s better to have three really good grades rather than, potentially, four with the top three not quite so good.

One thing that might help your son is that the A level Maths syllabus builds on areas already covered at GCSE whereas Further Maths tends to build on itself. So it’s really important to hit the ground running and do the extra reading so that you can keep up as you move on to the next topic. It’s also worth looking at which areas they will be studying. My DS2 loves Pure Maths but doesn’t get on so well with the Applied topics.

I can imagine sixth forms and colleges saying three A levels are recommended, rather than doing four. However, of those also offering FM, did they say 'do three but, if you are considering FM, the FM should be selected as a fourth'? That would certainly be the position across state sixth forms and colleges in our area.

Both my sons did 4 A levels with FM. Ds1 had 5 hours for each subject and Ds2 had 4 1/2 hours.

If they took FM then the children were in a different stream to the normal A level maths group. The grade required was a 7 but both of mine got mid grade 9s. They spent year 12 studying the entire 2 years of A level maths as they had a timetabled slot for "maths" and one labelled "further maths" to show the different teachers. They sat AS maths paper before Christmas as they had finished that content. They started FM in year 12 as the cohort was able to.

If they struggled with maths in year 12 they could move over to the normal slower paced A level maths stream. About half did.

Ds's day started at 8.30 and he had a 2 hour slot for the first subject, then hourly slots and finished at 3.20. His timetable also included 5 hours for free periods, a 1 hour assembly, a 1 hour tutorial (like form time sort of) also 2 hours "enrichment" on a Wednesday afternoon. Each subject had 5 hours of contact time (teaching) per week and Ds finished a lot of his work in class or in his frees. He hardly ever needed to do work at home.

He used his free periods to work on homework and they had a little study group because they all wanted high grades.

No doubt @noblegiraffe who teaches maths and further maths will agree, if your child is used to acing maths easily for GCSE and they struggle at A level they need to recognise when they need to ask for help or do extra work to help them understand what they are doing. Lots were unused to asking and then it starts to slide. So instead of just accepting you got a C grade on the end of topic test, you acknowledge where you went wrong and you circle back to it later to make sure the concept is now cemented in your head. You retest yourself. At DC's sixth form teachers were available every day for 30 minutes at the end of the day for guidance. However, some students will just go home or leave the site in their frees, or piss around on their phones rather than using their time productively.

Did you check that still applied if one of the subjects was FM? It’s more usual, I think, for schools to say 3 except if one is FM.

@Klemamtine thanks for this. It's great to get other opinions.

DS is currently flying with GCSE maths, top set and got a 9 in his most recent mocks.

He and 1 other student from year 11, were selected to self teach further maths and he got a 9 there too.

I just worry about the pressure he puts on himself to maintain these grades - but of course extremely proud of him.

He's got his sights set on Cambridge after A levels and they require further maths for the courses he's seen so far. It helps that my father in law is a retired maths teacher and alway on hand.

This is all so alien to me - I only did GNVQ's back in the day!

@Seriously79 it depends if they find it hard. Ds1 sailed it, it just came very easily to him. For some people their brains just click with maths, both of mine did maths for fun whilst waiting for food in restaurants, mental maths challenges to each other. It was lovely to watch. Dh did a mech eng degree (maths and physics) and I did English Lit so this was all very alien to me too I live in a maths nerd household but I love it.

Re Cambridge, look ahead now, I know it seems early but it isn't. He can do some stuff over this summer toward A level, just dip his toe, get a feel. Both of mine learned their Computer Science yr 13 gaming language for their coursework over their year 11 ten week summer so it was very easy for them later on. They just love learning.

If he is looking at STEP for a Cambridge course then I believe that Cambridge set the pass rate to deliberately drop excess students as they only have X number of places for their course. You can get the grades but still "fail" the STEP requirement. This might only be for maths, it has been a while since I had to look into this sort of stuff. Ds did CTMUA (Cambridge) TMUA for Computer Science.

@Landlubber2019 whilst it is extremely common to sit 3 A levels FM comes under the 4th A level category and when applying to university it is possible that a lot of the other applicants have FM if it is a maths based course and so it could potentially disadvantage your child.

Look ahead now at the university requirements and not only that I would look into how many applicants they offered to with FM or contact admissions and specifically ask. A university cannot specify FM because not all sixth forms offer it but a lot of applicants will have it. Ds went to Durham for Computer Science and something like 92% of all successful applicants had FM but it is not specified. He said you absolutely needed FM knowledge in first year. Some may have sat TMUA and provided their results too on their UCAS form.

Some unis ask you to sit an entrance exam, ie TMUA (The Test of Mathematics for University Admission)* *for say Econ at Warwick which is where Ds2 is. It does depend how high he will be aiming. Do not rely on staff at sixth forms being all knowing, do your own research and ask on here too as many of us have been through this as parents. I have learned so much from the secondary/further education and higher education boards. I was always looking a couple of years ahead to get informed.

Just another thing to throw in here, just as A level maths is very different and a big step up from GCSE, degree level maths is very different and a huge step up from A level. The core topics are so theoretical it’s really hard to imagine.

When I did all my applications many moons ago, I was told that if you like A level maths you actually should look to a physics degree which is far more similar to maths A level. And if you like physics A level you should look to engineering courses. I don’t know how true that all is as I stuck to my guns and did maths but I remember thinking back to it regularly while I struggled with the degree level work (having breezed through school maths, further maths and STEP paper).

So agree with others start off with 4 to have options and see how it goes. And maybe think broadly about degree options at this stage.

DS did Maths, FM, Bio & Chem.he enjoyed them all but FM was the hardest, and is currently doing a Chem based degree. He did find the additional workload challenging and thought doing 3 would definitely have been ‘easier’ to get top marks, but the undoubted advantage his FM gave him at uni is obvious - all stem subjects at his uni look at everyone’s A level results, give them a short exam when they start to decide if they need to do Maths modules alongside their course. IIRC he thought only those with FM didn’t have to attend anything.

on some courses, the students with better maths qualifications may get to do harder maths rather than none - which if you want maximum educational value for your fees is a positive!

Thank you very much to the teachers and more experienced mums posting - it’s really interesting and useful information . I was quietly uneasy about my son’s school’s approach . He’s on the edge of 8/9 for his GCSE so sounds like I might be right to keep an eye

Generally further maths is an extra. Definitely start with four - lots of students (I’m a teacher) find it tough and drop it.

At my son's school a student can only do FM as a fourth subject. They require grade 9 maths and grade 8 further maths at GCSE.

Even with these limitations they still drop 75% of the FM class at the end of the first term if they aren't able to keep up. It's ruthless. The maths/FM students at DS' school tend to do philosophy and ethics or economics as their fourth because it gives them an essay subject.

Perfect combo. Chemistry at the end would work best