Maths gcse higher

[rockingbird]

My son is autistic, he's in a private SEN school (from yr 5) and has been doing very well. Mainstream just didn't fit for him and whilst the other boys were playing football or kiss chase he was reciting the solar system and its many wonders 😬 His new school have been amazing - his math tutor (also now his form tutor) has recognised his talents and pushed him a little more to better understand his capabilities. His science, history and maths are all well above yr 8 and this year he's taking the maths and science higher gcse so they can allow him to progress to A-level with the post 16 pupils from September. Ultimately he's happy, completely cool about it all and is hitting 98-100% in mock tests for all these subjects so obviously super confident about it all. We don't really discuss it - his choice! Parents evening is coming up and I need to better understand where this is all going. His tutor is working on a forward plan and I need to ask the right questions and not walk away just blown away with his abilities. He's such an amazing boy, fast approaching the teenage years and an absolute delight to have at home, I am however starting to worry about what's next. Maths is his passion, I'm honestly baffled and completely out of my depth! Has anyone got any experience of this? I've read countless threads on why it's deemed not good to do the GCSEs early - trouble is if he didn't he'd become very bored. He self taught algebra in lockdown aged 7 so his focus is impressive. I'm just starting to look forward to the future and where all this will take him.

I think finding out where they are going next is important. A level maths and further maths are the obvious natural move but there is so much maths outside of the curriculum.

DD has been doing the Royal Institute maths sessions on a Saturday that her academy trust has organised for the maths higher flyers on a and that covers the more fun side of maths and it's application like probability and card tricks, infinity, game theory etc.

I think in your shoes I'd want them to be exploring breadth not just ticking off academic boxes as there is a limit to that. Once he finishes the A level work what next? Going to university early or covering university level content might be within his ability mathematically but there are lots of cons to it too. Perhaps the tutor could look at the curriculum for maths in other countries and teach that as well.

it's not 100% clear to me from your posts exactly what age he currently is, or what year group he's being taught with. Nonetheless I'd suggest:

1. get a copy of "Developing Math Talent" by by Susan G. Assouline and Ann Lupkowski-Shoplik.
2. Read about acceleration https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/acceleration.htm
3. Acceleration and enrichment are complementary - evidence-based best practice is to accelerate then enrich (https://www.giftedpage.org/acceleration/)
4. In terms of future provision, don't get preoccupied taking exams unless they're needed in order to access the next level of instruction. But use the associated course curricula and textbooks. Progression through systematic planned curricula is preferable to scattergun enrichment.
5. Aside from A level, alternative curricula include https://artofproblemsolving.com/ and UKMT materials.
6. look into maths circles (https://mesme.org/maths-circles/) UKMT (https://ukmt.org.uk/enrichment/mentoring) and https://parallel.org.uk/.
7. there's a youtube channel called 3blue1brown - some of the stuff is accessible, other bits go well into university level maths

http://library.lol/main/259DAD62A6776336D35DD24CAEDC2D54

http://library.lol/main/509FC734A1FD53F1A119C661954A3DB6

http://library.lol/main/5149180421B08F8579362051AC9BEF3A

https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Introduction+to+number+art+problem&open=0&res=25&view=simple&phrase=1&column=def

If you don't have time for him to go through those four books, then this one covers the material in less depth: http://library.lol/main/1A8F0D1DE427D15D0799E0B90E7E4280 (solutions: http://library.lol/main/D0A006C1415C2AF936ADBA352B647F72 )

Also look at the junior books from https://ukmt.org.uk/textbooks

He should take this if there's still time to register: https://ukmt.org.uk/junior-challenges/junior-kangaroo

The students who will eventually represent Britain at the IMO arent just going through the standard curriculum faster, they're going deep into competition maths which is far more challenging than A level FM.

Once he's gotten a theoretical base, he can practice past competition problems here: https://www.drfrost.org/worksheets.php?wdid=44

Whereabouts in the country are you @Rockingbird?
My Y9 daughter is autistic & just about coping in a very supportive academic school. Like your son, she is wired for maths...she's won gold & silver medals in the last 2 UKMT Olympiads and just wants 'more maths'. I found her a couple of maths classes on Saturdays based on the maths circle approach...they teach the logic & problem solving 'puzzle' type of maths that she goes crazy for & which is far more interesting than the GCSE syllabus. One we pay for pay for & one is by invitation only. The latter has a few venues around the country. Most of the kids at the former are on the spectrum & a fair few are at the free one.

Feel free to DM me for details. Autism & maths is my specialty subject! (I also have a Y11 DS who is diagnosed too).

I'd also really encourage you to watch the documentary 'Beautiful Young Minds' on YouTube...it was a watershed moment for me & made me realise that you need to harness the gift & passion for maths..it will potentially lead your DC to their tribe.

Thank you all for your input, GCSEs start this week, he's very calm about it all. We are in the SE (Kent Coast). Son is currently 11, 12 next month. Parents evening was fine, his form tutor was also confident he'd get a top grade pass in all papers and is arranging for him to study with the post 16 guys from Sept - next academic year. I appreciate the links and information, much appreciated. Going to have a good look, like the idea of offering him extra study privately which I know he will love. It's hard as he's not a typical pre-teen playing Fortnite, he needs to find his people and I feel this is the avenue best suited to him.

The biggest problem with sitting GCSE early and then moving onto A-level early is that he is going to run out of secondary school maths well before he is out of secondary school. So what will he do then? The assumption is that he will start university maths early, but universities don’t want this. Cambridge specifically advise against it as the student will just be bored when they do get to uni.

Looking beyond the curriculum and trying to slow down the acceleration so that he finishes his further maths A-level in Y13 ready to progress to university at the right age would be best. UKMT are good here, with a wealth of materials to stretch and challenge, summer camps and ultimately training for the British Olympiad team.

I've attached another documentary (The Growing Pains of an Autistic Genius) that you might find relevant & interesting @rockingbird as the boy is much closer in age to your son than in Beautiful Young Minds

We've chosen not to go down the accelerated route to keep a sense of normality in mainstream...she does masses of extension work in her maths lessons instead. However, I can see why you'd go for it in a special school (which I also have experience of).

Breadth & enrichment will be key so your son doesn't become fixated with passing the next level - as Callum does in this documentary. @noblegiraffe is absolutely right in stating that Unis are really not keen early admissions & Trinity state as much in this documentary.

Cambridge publish a nice list of super-curricular resources that your son could dip into. My daughter loves Tom Rocks Maths, all the TEDEd Riddles (she could watch these all day), Numberphile videos, Simon Singh's Parallel Circles (his book Fermat's Last Theorem is brilliant - even I as a non mathematician loved it). You could subscribe him to Brilliant too. There is a wealth of really exciting material out there. My daughter's Czech maths teacher says for kids like her Maths is like a playground. Keep it fun

Good luck to your son this week!

Ugh - I managed to attach the trailer in my previous post
Here is the full documentary - Callum also sat his GCSEs in maths & further maths at age 11 so worth a watch

It's generally not true that students will run out of curriculum. There are optional curriculum units for further maths so the "double maths" A level curriculum actually contains enough material for 3 A levels - the third used to be awarded as "additional further maths". There's also Statistics A level. Working through this material at a rate of 1 A level per 2 years will fill 6 years. The last year could be spent on MAT, AEA and STEP. And of course most students who are able and keen enough to consider this will also be going off-piste.

Its also generally not true that universities don't want acceleration or accelerated students. What universities do want is (a) top grades in preference to early grades (b) 3+ A levels in one session to demonstrate the ability to cope with a full-time course, and (c) evidence of recent study to mitigate concerns over rusty skills (so taking the A level maths exam 2 or more years before intending to start uni might cause some issues but studying the curriculum will not). There are a handful of universities who are (illegally) hostile to early entry, like Durham, but plenty of others who are open to it.

Several families/students known to me have gone down the early uni entry route. Others have chosen to take A level(s) in maths early but stay in school until at/near the "usual" uni age, completing 6 or 7 A levels in total, and using olympiads etc to keep up their interest in maths. None regret accelerating in various ways. And of course the teams picked by UKMT for competitions are disproportionately stuffed with kids who have taken A level maths early, so the idea that one should do UKMT/competition maths instead of A level is just horseshit - the kids getting picked by UKMT invariably do it as well as A level, and have often been significantly accelerated by their school, or by someone outside school with equivalent expertise..

Your ds sounds amazing OP.

Just throwing in an aside, my maths wizard db (not a genius but extremely high IQ) got heavily into coding around the age of ten too. He was an early adopter so it was inevitably self-directed learning as there was literally no one on our council estate to teach him. He built his own PC and then he built his secondary school its first computer network (I think they basically created the project to keep him occupied and got a cheap network installation as a result!).

That ultimately led to a flourishing and very well paid career developing real-time modelling solutions for financial institutions. The maths content is (for me) mind blowing but of course he finds it easy. And he really likes the six figure salary.

So I would think about whether there are maths applications or related areas your ds would enjoy. Ways he can explore his own intelligence, something cutting edge where he can do his own investigations. Maybe AI and algorithms might be interesting.

It's generally not true that students will run out of curriculum. There are optional curriculum units for further maths so the "double maths" A level curriculum actually contains enough material for 3 A levels - the third used to be awarded as "additional further maths". There's also Statistics A level

There might be, but there certainly won't be the teachers available. If that is the plan, then it needs to be planned now, not bumbled into.

It's already been discussed @noblegiraffe and there is a plan to work with the university which fortunately is local for maths and science subjects. No ones bumbling along here, just trying to gauge what others have done in this situation. Ultimately he's happy, loves the challenge and is completely unfazed by it all. His tutor is amazing, making that jump in lockdown to remove him from mainstream school and go private was the best thing I could have done. Coding - currently self taut python and dabbling with mathmatica

I know plenty of kids in the UK team and the wider training squad for many years. They are not stuffed with kids who took Maths early. There are some but most of them still take their A Level Maths and FM at normal time in year 13.

Some have taken the exam, others have covered the syllabus but deferred the exam so as not to run afoul of some unis' expectations.. I know of one kid who had taken double maths by year 10 and competed on the British team, but was rejected by some unis for not having evidence of recent study, which is absurd. Of the ones I know of, a disproportionate number had accelerated in various ways - they were using a mix of curriculum (A level/further/step) and competition style resources (e.g. AOPS), not strictly one or other.

I am not disputing the fact that they accelerate in many different ways. You don’t get to compete with the best if you just follow the school curriculum.

However, my point is they don’t often take exams early and wait to take Maths and FM at the same time as the other 1/2/3 subjects. It reduces their A Level workload so they can focus on training for the UKMT competitions & camps.

Also check out https://www.olympiad.org.uk/ and https://usaco.guide/

At DS's (private) school, the whole top set for maths took their GCSE in the Jan of year 10, and English lang in the summer of year 10. Then they spent y11 doing English lit and OPQ (?) free standing maths qualification. I don't really understand what the is, but he has it!
Oxbridge were not at all fussed that some GCSE's were taken early.

Where does Cambridge specifically advise against this? And why can't he do A-level maths during GCSE years and further maths during A-level years?

They advised against it when we asked them. Cambridge also run NRich which says that acceleration should only be considered in exceptionally rare circumstances with consideration given to their social ability as well as academic. https://nrich.maths.org/articles/supporting-high-achieving-and-interested-students

If you read the OP, he's sitting GCSE Maths in Y8, not during his GCSE years. In addition, one of the problems with doing A-level in GCSE years and then Further Maths in A-level years is that A-levels sat early are potentially not included in university offers. That means that if he gets an A* in A-level maths in Y11, it wouldn't count for UCAS.

Well we shall see what the result are in 2 days time. I've been told by his form tutor he's predicted 9's for all. He's been offered private tutoring at school outside of normal maths lessons from September to further develop his mathematical knowledge working 'towards' A Level. It hasn't been decided when he will take them. If he wants to sit A levels and is ready who am I to step in his way! The tutor is coming in from the university- very knowledgeable and has met with my son, his form tutor and me. We are all happy with the plan and I'm super grateful to the school and all those involved helping him. Is it the norm ? NO so if a university deems it not suitable that's not the right place for him.