Maths A-level - weakest link

[stubiff]

Following on from DS’s choices dilemma (still ongoing) and the thread re AAC (C in Maths) then interested in DC experiences of taking Maths A-level and it being the weakest link (for whatever reason).

If they got Maths GCSE 6, or 7 even, did they regret taking Maths A-level.
If they got 777 at GCSE, did they expect predictions of BBB (or the same grades across the board) but found Maths harder/got lower (predicted/actual).
Did they take Maths A-level to ‘keep options open’ or because school/parents/MN/ANOther recommended it, and then regretted it.
Did they get predicted AAC, or BBD (say), and have trouble picking Unis/courses, or the level of Uni/course.

Thanks.

@stubiff right so he has time as he is year 11. Both my sons did maths and further maths A level because they love maths, as in do it for fun, look at why a formula works not just know to apply it type children. They have to love it because as you can see from above it is bloody hard to do well in it. Even those on 9s, over half do not get an A star. Ds2 is year 13, Ds1 is at uni and did get 4 A stars but both my sons came in on a mid range 9 and are resiliant, rise to a challenge type children. Also grade 9s for their other subjects too, well mainly grade 9s with some 8s. State school, brilliant, fantastic teachers who inspired and motivated them.

I always sound like a broken record but this is the point where you can tell your son good GCSEs lead to good A level results and if their grades are high enough they can apply to any course at any uni. If their grades are lower like the AAC thread then some doors are closed that they might want to get through at that point. They are competing against parents who drop tens of thousands of pounds a year to get a great education for their child.

ds1 was one of the outliers. So grade 7 GCSE and then A* at A level. However, in his case anxiety affected his GCSE performance and he was a lot calmer for his A levels. He also tended to lose marks for careless mistakes but has generally had good understanding. So, basically, think about whether the maths aptitude is there rather than just the GCSE result before deciding whether or not the A level is right.

ds got an 8 and then an A (covid TAG) He likes maths and found it fine (but covid) and is in final year of a maths heavy degree.
dd1 got an 8 (covid TAG) and then a C, entirely due to lack of work. She didn't find it hard though. Did it with physics which helped.

dd2 in year 11. Predicted a 7, but teacher has said aim for an 8 because the gap between 7 and 8 matters enormously for A level. So getting an almost 8 rather than an just scrapped 7 will make all the difference to how easy you find A level.

But the sixth forms and colleges are all asking for a 6 or 7. That seems low to me.

My daughter did A level Maths on the back of an A at GCSE. She was predicted an A at A level, and woke up on results day to see she'd got a D. I think she was expecting as much, but had kept this to herself. Her offer for History was AAA and she got AA D, having put lots of effort into History. Fortunately, her firm still took her. I was a bit pissed off to say the least that her teachers in her sixth form hadn't realised she was struggling, and sorry she'd not realised it was such a problem for her. A high achieving sixth form college that puts a lot off effort into getting kids into Oxbridge. I think she just wasn't on their radar.

Ah, I see my * has put my words into bold.

GCSE was A* in Maths
A levels she got were A* A D.

OP for all the people who are reporting As and A stars between 2020 and 2022 the grade boundaries were much higher this year (2023) and will be for the forseeable future.

Only 11.2% of students taking A levels this year took A level Maths. I don't want to go as far as saying it will be top 11% of the cohort - but the majority of those students will be (generalisation) at the upper end of the capability of the cohort (as Maths is needed for Comp Sci / Economics / some STEM subjects).

Roughly 41% got an A or A* - 42% of boys and 40.9% of girls. Thats alot of very clever students not getting higher than a B.

So sorry @stubiff I thought you were the poster whose dd was predicted AAC but I see now you are the one with the complex subject,-choice challenge!

Ignore the last para of my post. But also IMHO ignore advice to take maths A level if disliked "to keep options open"

Just to add to my post from above about grades being lower now than the TAG grades:

2023 - Roughly 41% got an A or A* - 42% of boys and 40.9% of girls.

In 2022 - 48% of boys /48.5% of girls got an A / A*

In 2021 - 53.5% of boys and 57.8% of girls got an A / A*

I can't find the same information for 2020 but you get my point!

My ds took his a levels this year. The maths B was unexpected (by him) but history moving to A also unexpected (by him). However, history teacher on his case constantly and he put more hours into history than maths where an A expected...

My DS got a 9 in his maths last year, but is finding A-level very difficult and I am worried that he won't achieve the A grade he needs.
DH and I both tried to persuade him not to do it as we both did really well at GCSE but then struggled with A-level as it is such a steep jump in terms of difficulty.
Still you cannot really tell teen DCs anything, they need to learn for themselves.

@noblegiraffe Tell that to the 200+ GCSE 6-ers who got B or better at A-level!
And C, D and E are still passes.
But, I get your point. A lot of DC probably expect decent grades at A-level after GCSE 7, and this is not always the case. If there was an equivalent table for sciences I'd guess we'd probably see similar numbers.

@Africa2go Noted, re % getting A/Astar over last few years. @Dishee that's why (although it looks old) Noble used the 17/19 matrix as it's the one that is most 'normal', and, for me, we should be using.

My school takes a 6 for A-level. A lot of those 6s have already dropped out because they couldn't cope. As a pp said, the matrix doesn't capture those, only the ones that actually made it through two years and sat the exams.

And yes, an E is still a pass grade, but for those kids it's a fairly miserable experience to even get that. I've seen it a lot over the years. I've also had parents say 'I wish we'd known at the start that they would come out with a very low grade instead of you just saying that they would "find it difficult", we'd have switched to something else'.

I think the one I posted was put together by Edexcel's maths dept. The ones that are average GCSE point score to A-level result are the government KS4 to KS5 transition matrices and are available for all subjects if anyone wants a look https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/16-to-18-level-3-value-added-ready-reckoner

(2019 is the most recent set of results available that weren't affected by covid)

Firstly, noble knows what they are talking about considering they teach it and have years of experience of entry grades and actual grades and has been a great contributor to maths threads over the years. And for that I am very grateful. Ds's sixth form also state 6 for maths and 7 for fm. Just under half of Ds's class dropped out of the fm stream when their maths grades were low in year 12.

Overall I agree with the whole CAGs/TAGs being off kilter but actually Ds1 deserved his A fricking stars, he sat the AS level maths paper in December of year 12 and got an A star, every internal test they took he got high percentages on all papers. Just because some students were graded up doesn't mean others didn't deserve their high grades. Ds was also interviewed by Cambridge after sitting their TMUA entrance exam for maths, so it is fair to say he is competent at maths. It is sad that people seem to judge all of them as not worthy of their grade.

There are always outliers who perform better than expected. Some children choose to work. Ds did peer to peer teaching of maths as his mates all wanted top universities so worked in their free periods as a study group to ensure they got high grades.

It is pre the new GCSE overhaul but from year 7/8 Ds knew the predicted GCSE to A level grades as there is a 2010 analysis document about it with every subject on it.

DS's school takes ppl for maths with a 6 too - someone in his maths class got a 6, and in an early yr 12 test, scored zero. Apparently she burst into tears and ran out of the room - not surprising really. It was a tough test (DS scored half marks which was pretty good he assured me ) but who wants their DC to be scoring zero? Even to get an E grade?

BTW I also utterly reject the notion that TAGs are in some way not valid or worthy. I agree that it is not perhaps helpful to look at those grades or 2022 grade boundaries as a marker or indicator, but the students who took A levels and GCSEs in those years gained their grades and they are totally valid. As I said, I think DS2 would actually have done better if he had sat the exams - but it is done and all fine anyway.

As far as the TAGs is concerned - the evidence is that more students got the higher grades than the norm - significantly so. You can't argue with that - we're all a bit biased and say our children deserved their TAGs and would have got the same or better results had they sat the exams (I have DC who got TAGS at GCSE) - but in reality, the number of children getting As and A stars in those years was an anomaly and is not going to happen in 2024 / 2025 and onwards. For the OP, its important to use non-TAG results to see how many children, ordinarily, get As or A stars and use that in her decision making for her DC.

Yep I agree with all that and I did say that there is no point using TAG years as any kind of benchmark - which is why Noble's table uses 2019 data.

My point was really, let's not make our young people feel that they didn't deserve their grades - it's not their fault they were not able to sit exams and we need (as parents, employers, commentators) to embrace the fact that those are their grades and move on.

(I have seen people in the last couple of years say things like: "well of course they didn't really get those GCSE grades" which seems unfair and unproductive).

Yes, @Africa2go as mentioned above, will be looking at non-covid years.
Am a him not a her, btw!
To be fair, almost to a person, people have said the step up is hard and there have been some unexpected results, which have impacted on Uni/course choice.

Have also asked the Head of Maths if they have the equivalent of Noble's table for the school. That may help.

@clary - agree entirely Sorry @stubiff for the presumption

@Africa2go I know it's a 'net' for mums (!) but there are a few dads as well.😀

I am not sure if this helps because a long time ago . DS started on 4 A levels - All of which he had had A* for at GCSE - humanities plus maths . With the agreement of his school he dropped maths at the end of his first 6th form term. . He was competent but not good , so he dropped maths because teachers said he would spend so much time on his maths - it could impact his other grades

So in no way am I saying that Maths is not a good A level , it is but DS found the step up to A level very very hard & it was impacting other subjects

For info this was well before Covid if that helps .

@BasiliskStare Thanks, yes, another bit of evidence that suggests that the step up is hard, and it may be harder/take more effort to get the same A-level grade in Maths as a diff subject from the same GCSE grade.
E.g. 7 to A in History but 7 to A in Maths with a stack more work, or 7 to B in Maths with the same effort as the former.
And, as you say, the potential impact on the other subjects.

DC school warned against taking math A level without strong GCSE grades, no matter what parents might say. Maths A level without much aptitude can be done, but it is very hard work.

Dispiriting as well. Others are breezing through, grasping concepts quickly and doing their homework on the bus, whilst when the less mathematical are spending hours getting to the answer and holidays practicing test papers, probably with some top up tuition thrown in. We have seen kids do it, but they have tended to be determined, say to read vet-med or to apply to a top US University, even though they are not natural scientists.

It is also one thing getting through maths A level with a lot of hard work and determination, and another to use that qualification to access a highly quantitative degree course. That is a recipe for misery.

My son bucked the trend. He got a C at GCSE and was advised not to do it at A Level. He did not follow the advice and got an A. He then did an integrated masters in maths at a very good uni.

@stubiff E.g. 7 to A in History but 7 to A in Maths with a stack more work, or 7 to B in Maths with the same effort as the former.

Depends what your DC is good at & enjoys though. My eldest two DDs both received 8’s in both maths and history. DD1 enjoys maths, DD2 less so. Swap that for history. So although they both achieved 8’s in those two subjects with similar effort, the enjoyment of it helped them achieve at A level. No way would DD1’s 8 in history have given her an A at Alevel; it did for maths. Likewise DD2’s 8 in maths would not have given her a decent grade at A level; yet she did brilliantly in A level history.

Whilst a high grade at GCSE is more likely to help achieve a good grade at A level it’s more nuanced than that. All A levels are a steep step up from gcse (including history) so a love for the subject is important.