Sitting maths GCSE early - how to approach

[bekindpls]

With the risk of being shot down, our DC is gifted but is at a school (v academic) where they don't agree with sitting kids early for GCSEs instead encouraging enrichment activities .

I do agree with this in principle, but would be very keen for DC to get ahead with the maths as they're a bit bored and I'd rather they did something useful than spending their time gaming (Minecraft) which is now the case - they race through all their HW usually.

Plus, and this is important, their sports commitments are expected to increase drastically from Y10/11, so we want to get one GCSE out of the way early if we can.

DC is a very fast learner and once told, will remember. Very able mathematician, particularly when it comes to logic/problem solving and usually get 100% or close to 100% in maths tests at school.

So, my question is - what is the best way to quickly (starting perhaps this Summer hols - don't worry, DC will have PLENTY of spare time to chill) to get DC to work through the GCSE curriculum?

I know there is a GCSE spec Someone mentioned Save My Exams?

Ideally I'd like an online resource where you can quickly work through the various topics, ideally AI powered to be able to focus efficiently on weaker areas (but that is probably asking for too much)!

Very carefully, some Unis want all GCSEs sat in the same season.

Could they do an additional maths exam at the same time?

I came to say the same thing. Its not looked at favourably by university

I came to say the same thing. Its not looked at favourably by university

Taking Maths GSCE early is normally seen as a bad thing for a number of reasons. Certain university and post 16 providers like to see you have done all your qualifications in one sitting, shows how you cope with stress etc
Also if he takes it early is there a risk he doesn't get the highest possible grade, especially if he is being home taught. A resit doesn't look good for competitive courses. Trust your school and find other ways for him to enjoy and excel at Maths, does your school do Maths Olympiad for example?

You won't be helping the situation by getting him to take it early. He will still need to do maths throughout year 11 as if he doesn't, he won't be prepared for A-level, which I'm assuming he might take if he is gifted in maths. There are plenty of maths enrichment opportunities available if he is bored.

If maths is so easy why is it important to get it out of the way early?

Besides you don't really expect the school to let him miss all his maths lessons in year 10 and/or 11 do you? If he's that good they'd be wanting him to to the FSMQ or Additional or something as well as GCSE. Which are designed for kids like your ds and would be good for him, plus they're a great basis for A level.

JavaScript, HTML/CSS, SQL, Python, and Java would be better than minecraft.

What's your endgame? It would be different if you were planning to accelerate all courses. However, maths needs to be studied continuously and so accelerating and finishing early isn't a good idea if he wants to continue with maths beyond A-levels. I also echo previous posters points regarding university.

Current research suggests a better approach for gifted kids anyhow is self discovery and open ended investigation. Why don't you explore the NRich website created by Cambridge? He could also engage in self directed learning on Khan Academy to explore various math topics if he's interested without doing formal GCSE exams.

What is your plan with school? Would he just not be going to his cohorts maths lessons in year 11? What would he do instead, and have you asked school if this is ok?

I'm really curious about this as my dd, year 9, in set 1 at a very selective grammar school is in the same boat. Her entire class could sit the gcse today and get 9s. (And have done some past papers) But they don't do it. I'm interested in the responses from others as to why as I have always wondered why not!

You say his sports commitment is likely to ramp up in Yr10/11. Why not up his sports commitment now? My DD has got upwards of 96% in every maths test she has sat at secondary school, but has not sat exams early. She will be doing maths and further maths this summer in Yr11. She’s found maths enjoyable, and has enjoyed not having academic pressure every year. She put a lot of effort into her activities outside of school, and last year represented her country in the world championships of her sport, a thing she would have struggled with had she been occupied with a GCSE. As others have said, doing exams spread across years doesn’t look great on paper, and is not especially beneficial for the child either. If the school they are at is experienced with academic children, and doesn’t believe taking exams early to be of much benefit, why not follow their advice?

Getting maths out of the way early wouldn’t free up revision time for other things though because your DS is lucky enough to find maths easy and so won’t need to revise for the gcse exam.

Another thing to consider is, Maths is compulsory until the end of Y11. So taking a GCSE early does not get you out of Maths lessons.

I'm not sure I agree with this approach either. I did mine a year early (over 30 years ago mind you) but that's because I did another maths exam the following year when I did the rest of my GCSEs (no idea what it was - some sort of further maths) so I was still continuing with the maths study. I'm assuming that your DCs school doesn't have that provision?

Our local school spreads GCSEs over 3 years, and they do RPE (Religious studies) in Y10 - but presumably that's because its a subject that a relatively low number of pupils choose to continue with in 6th form) My kids aren't at that school so i don't know the reasoning.

Elder ds could have sat maths gcse in year 10 but we chose for him to wait until year 11. It gave him time to learn at greater depth. Also if he does not do as well as you expect then sitting it twice does not look good. You have to be sure he will do very well. You also need to get the school on side as what will he do in maths lessons if he had already taken it.

No point in doing it early. Universities don't like it, and if he finds maths that easy anyway, it will not really make much difference to his workload in Year 10 and 11.

Find other ways of stretching him instead. Also, if it's a very academic school, find out what else they offer with regard to maths in Y10 and Y11 so that the more able pupils don't get bored with content that they have already covered. Lots of schools offer FSMQ for top sets or similar.

For now, there will be other things that he can do to stretch himself. Or if he must do a GCSE early for reasons other than boasting rights, then maybe pick something that he wouldn't be doing otherwise.

DD's whole year group did Statistics GCSE in Year 10. Not really sure why, maybe to give them all a bit of a boost by getting an easy one under their belts early? Something like that might work better as it wouldn't mean doing fewer in Year 11, and it wouldn't even need to be declared to Universities etc.

DD was offered the option of doing French at school in Y9. We said no as we didn't think there would be any real benefit.

Ds is at a state school and never got below 96% on GCSE maths papers, year 10 and 11 were an absolute joke in terms of him learning anything but there is nowhere to go. If he sat maths in year 10 there are no lessons or classes he could attend after that that would stretch him; he would still be timetabled in for maths with the same teacher. There was no option for further maths as no teachers available. He was already doing statistics as a GCSE anyway. Even for GCSE maths revision we were told there was nothing to suggest as Ds could do it all. We knew their hands were tied. He is now year 12 and doing maths and further maths A levels and predicted A stars in all 4 subjects not just maths.

Universities don't look kindly on GCSEs sat early, there is nothing to gain from it in any direction. They want to see a child handling a full GCSE workload.

I'm really surprised to hear university's look down on it - I would have thought being bright enough to take a gcse early would look good - (especially if you're still taking 10 others in year 11) ?

Universities don't care about GCSEs being sat in one sitting. They don't like retakes but they don't give a toss about them being taken in different sittings. They DO care about A levels being taken in one sitting.

In terms of getting through the spec, just buy a GCSE textbook, work through it, use something like maths genie, maths watch or corbett maths for anything that needs more explanation. Then download past papers, do as many as you can and then book the exam at a private exam centre.

That is all well and good. But what will the DS do in maths lessons in y10 & y11? Surely this is something that needs to be done in cooperation with the school not against them.

Thanks, interesting to have all the advice on here. DC's school does do FM/AM so will definitely be doing that. And maybe extra GCSEs so that it's still 10/11 in GCSE/Y11. There are many subjects DC wants to do so doing maths early would just free up thinking space and keeping DC occupied this summer. I realise lots of kids can achieve 97/98/100% - if you're able in maths it's not that difficult if you know what to cover at home. Yes, they do the maths challenges, bebras etc and DC always does v well in those but it was just a thought but realise maybe not a good idea then.

I was just wondering as I know some schools (including ours if not now, in the past) did some subjects early - e.g. languages/RS etc.

But lots of kids would be bright enough to do a maths gcse a couple of years early if their schools/parents were minded to push them in that direction. It isn't particularly exceptional.

Better to stretch a bright kid in other ways imo, rather than hothousing them so that they can pass exams earlier. Get them doing problems that require them to apply what they have learnt.

I wasn't saying DC is exceptional, but DC is definitely very high achieving across the board and would tick most of the boxes for a gifted (though not on the spectrum) child. We're not pushy but DC is naturally driven to learn.

I was just saying that DC is able learn things v quickly and retain it so I thought it would be an easy way to free up time for additional GCSEs and DC's sports commitments (sports bit niche and unfortunately not something that can be ramped up now to compensate, as someone suggested on here, it will be full on in Y11).

What do you mean by season? My daughter’s school did Eng Lit GCSE in year 10 - is this likely to be an issue? She’s currently year 12 and wanting to do English at uni.

Ah just read another post and hopefully it’s not an issue.

She didn't ask that question. But I don't think doing GCSE maths a year early is working against the school. If I was OP and I wanted my child to do GCSE maths a year early, I'd just ask if they could work through one of the further maths qualifications. For a good mathematician, working through a textbook independently should be straightforward so it's not really making life difficult for the school.