Maths GCSE at yr7

[rockingbird]

So.. last parents evening the Maths tutor was singing the praises of my DC and his maths abilities. In all his years of teaching had never come across such a gift. I wasn't too surprised as DC loves the subject and can blast through any amount of maths and most of it is self taught. Autistic and quite the professor! Anyway he asked my permission to have him sit a past maths GCSE paper to see how got on. Today I've had an email from the tutor to say he scored 98% and his only down marks was because of not showing the working out thoroughly. Obviously I'm blown away at my 11yr old being so bloody brilliant - he enjoyed the challenge apparently. Tutor is now wanting to work towards higher A level 1:1 which would mean giving up a music lesson twice a week. I'm apprehensive about pushing him to be the best - he's very competitive by nature and whilst I'm sure he's no doubt keen he's so young!! I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this? Any past experiences in this area would be welcome. I won't lie I'm totally out of my depth here 🫣

I’d keep the music lesson. Particularly for an ASD child the breadth of experience would be more valuable.

I wouldn't give up the music.
There is only so far DS can go with maths in a school environment, and he has 5 or 7 years more maths lessons.
Music often appeals to mathematical brains.

So, whilst is would be nice to be challenged with the maths right now, I think it would be better for him to do the music, and keep playing with the maths in his own time - and maybe the teacher would be prepared to suggest challenges and directions for DS to explore?

This might not be in his best interest if he wants to do Maths at university - it isn't unheard of for Home Ed children to take a first GCSE aged 12 and stagger them, and the advice to them is always that you don't want to show any breaks in continuous study in maths (so do it later).
If you do Maths GCSE in Yr 8 and Maths A-Level in Yr 10 and Further Maths A-Level in Year 11 what do you do for the next two years before university? (other than forget all your maths).

I don’t know if you should do it, but if you do, then you might need some sort of plan. It’ll be easy to get through the A level in a year. But then what? I mean obv maths is a gigantic subject and there will always be stuff to do - uni entry test prep (STEP/MAT etc), undergrad work, breadth work. But going to university early is a difficult situation. He won’t be able to use the uni experience to transition to adulthood or integrate socially as he’ll be too young. He may consider that being socially integrated is overrated though.

No, don’t do it. Taking A-levels early would leave him a massive gap in the maths curriculum before attending university and top universities have said that they do not want teens to be taught the uni content early to pass the time.

If your DS wants extending in maths then look to the UKMT and their maths challenge resources. If he’s good enough he could end up on the international Olympiad team so it goes to the highest levels.

(I assume it was a Higher Tier paper? If so that's fab.)

There is a lot more maths than GCSE/ A level curriculum.

Thanks for your input, much appreciated. I was thinking the same.. by all means give him harder work in maths but taking away other lessons to further push him could be a bit too much. I'm having a call with his form teacher later today - I suspect she may say the same. As you say, what's the point and what if he smashes through that work.. then what? He's years left at secondary (it's a private specialist school) they are amazing and I absolutely love they have recognised his talent but I'm also very aware that this could hinder him in other ways.

No I wouldn’t give up music

I think it is a fundamentally bad idea to reduce the breadth of the curriculum for any child at this age. Your son is obviously very talented at maths and does indeed need to be given suitably challenging work, but I'm sure that is not all he is good at or enjoys. There may be other, as yet less obvious talents and passions as he will developing at quite a rate at this age. I would try to avoid too much focus on maths as it may not be in his best interests to be pigeon holed as "the maths genius" at this stage. Of course maths may indeed be his calling in life, but I doubt that it will close any doors if he doesn't do A level in KS3, whereas reducing the breadth of his learning at this age could in fact do that. I'm neither particularly mathematical or musical, but I do know several people who are both, and there does seem to be some crossover, especially when you get to more advanced music theory, so you never know, he may prove to be talented there too!
I know a couple of people who were very talented in a particular sphere when they were children and all the focus went onto that, to the detriment of other studies and passtimes. Neither of them feel they had a balanced childhood and one of them refuses to have anything at all to do with their "thing" now. I think it's a tricky situation when you have a child with a clear talent. Of course you want to encourage them to reach their potential, but at the same time, you don't want it to take over their whole lives. I think you are wise to look for a middle ground.

Definitely don't do it! I say that as a parent of a Maths undergrad who was also at GCSE level in Year 7. School need to do something different with him to keep him interested but he should do all his exams at the same time as his peers - particularly if there is a chance he wants to do a Maths/Com Sci degree. Universities do not like gaps in Maths education.
And definitely don't give up the music! DS studied 2 instruments to Grade 8 and it was a wonderful experience and opportunity to play in bands and orchestras. And it stopped him being nothing more than a maths 'geek'.

To have a tutor for math is a bad idea. I remember my DC can work out the last 25 digits of 100! himself at this age. That because he read lots of interesting math books for fun and it help his understanding of Maths.

Ah that's interesting (truely).
There will be at least 11 zeros at the end due to the 10s and 100 number.
Then a further 10 zeros due to the numbers ending in 2 and 5 multiplying.
So that's 21 zeros.
I can't go past that easily.

I wouldn't give up music.

If he sits GCSE in y8, then say, A level in year 10,are thee school going to be able to promise 1:1 tutoring for him for 3 full years? Are they able to guarantee timetabling for one single student, 4 periods a week, for all that time?

Kids usually do 4 hours a week of Maths, what is he going to do in year 11 in those 4 extra hours?

Keep the music. He can get practical and theory qualifications equivalent to GCSEs and A levels in music whilst still progressing with his Maths. There really is nothing worse than dealing with a bored year 10 or 11 student who has already covered the curriculum but is still stuck in a classroom.

Forget about GCSE early and focus on UKMT olympiads instead. He can do JMC and IMC. There is so much to do in terms of preparing for JMC / Kangaroo / JMO and then IMO / BMO. It is far more useful to invest time to study for those as this will over time help your son get into the BMO / Trinity training camps and so forth.

A lot of the Maths prodigies whose parents instead opted for early GCSE / A-level Maths did not end up fulfilling their potential. Cambridge Maths department will be far more interested in those who have excelled in olympiads and done well in the BMO round 2.

On top of that, you can also channel his abilities towards computer science / bebras challenge / linguistics olympiads and so forth. GCSE Maths is boring, he will excel in that anyway, it will be more worthwhile to focus on more intelligent content and contests.

Is the tutor connected with the school? What is happening in regular timetabled maths classes?

It should not be necessary to drop extracurricular music. What should be happening is that his time in class should be well spent on work matching his pre-existing attainment. If the school can't organize this you should be asking why. Computer instruction is one option you could suggest.
There is overwhelming evidence of the effectiveness of acceleration for highly able students. There is also evidence that students with DME (2e) benefit from a focus on strengths.
It's important to distinguish between exams and curricula. He will need a structured curriculum with sufficient challenge to ensure progress and leave no gaps, but the exams are irrelevant until he's closer to school leaving age. Developing Math Talent is worth reading.
It doesn't matter when he takes GCSE. It does matter when he takes A level because some unis now insist that A level maths be taken within 2 years of the intended start date. They also penalise any gaps in study (between finishing A level and starting degree) and want to see 3 A levels taken together (to demonstrate capability to handle the workload of a full-time course). He could e.g. take A level maths in Y11 providing he took A level further maths with 2 others in Y13. But taking any A levels more than 2 years before due to finish school could count negatively. Studying A level curricular material is just fine as long as he doesn't take the exam itself too early. What counts negatively from unis' perspective - i.e. what appears on the UCAS application - is the session the exams were taken in.
It's not the case that top universities frown on kids covering university material beforehand. In fact they want to see a very narrow focus on their degree subject with as much "super-curricular" (i.e. accelerated) activity in that area as possible, and extracurricular activities in other areas don't count. So a grade 8 in music won't impress a UK university when applying for STEM degrees, whereas a Coursera or EdX course in mathematical thinking will.
A supposed choice between school curricula and UKMT is a false dichotomy. UKMT is designed as a bolt-on enrichment activity for kids in UK schools following the national curriculum with the assumption that the national curriculum up to the relevant level have already been covered. You can't really access the intermediate challenge unless you've already covered most of the GCSE material (i.e. you'll be at a disadvantage if you haven't covered it), and you can't really access the senior challenge unless you've covered most of the number, algebra and geometry work on A level. Nor is UKMT an ideal solution - it doesn't provide a unified curriculum independent of the national curriculum and its areas of focus are not sufficiently broad - there is little stats or coordinate geometry, and no mechanics or calculus.
Better options which provide alternative deeper/broader curricula are:
EMF: Elements of Mathematics, Foundations
AOPS: Art of Problem Solving

I can highly recommend SAP education 101 Maths problems or other good Singapore Maths books for problem solving which my daughter uses and they are really challenging. Singapore is a world leading country in maths and their average students are at least a few grades ahead of a UK student. My husband is a highly experienced maths teacher who himself gifted and has taught further maths at IB and A level, and he says the problems in these books are really challenging. And not the same type of maths that appears in GCSE maths, which is more procedural and actually not so hard for a gifted kid. Maths Olympiad is another avenue for stretch and challenge. Again, a different type of maths than the normal UK KS3/GCSE curriculum.

My nephew is also very gifted in maths and actually developed a love of his music lessons as he progressed through secondary (there’s often a link apparently!?!) rather than sit exams early he was entered for loads of international maths competitions which sated his competitive natures and kept him interested. This may be good for your child too? DNephew absolutely smashed his GCSEs and is now racing through A Levels and would like to join the guildhall and study music composition.

> (it's a private specialist school)

I hope he attends there for free. Many highly selective private secondary schools would give such talent free place.