Anyone heard of MEI (maths education innovation) providing help with STEP prep for Cambridge?

[maxplanck]

DS is waiting to see if he has an offer from Cambridge to study maths at the end of the month. Also applied for Warwick so at some point will need to take the STEP exam. His state school have suggested he do a course provided by the above company in preparation. He doesn’t know much about it apart from it possibly being some form of online tuition/coaching. We’ve been sent a random £160 invoice for this course from school with no explanation. Before I contact school in the morning for more details I just wondered if anyone had heard of it and if it was worthwhile. DS has been tackling questions alone since the Summer and has found a fair amount of advice online about the exam but this has confused things a bit and we’re wondering if it’s vital. Thanks in advance !

Hi, it will be with AMSP https://amsp.org.uk/

They provide really good courses for students and teachers, I have attended as a teacher. The courses are run in conjunction with MEI which is an exam board offshoot of OCR. They provide a lot of training for A level maths and Further Maths.

I do think it is very cheeky of the school to just invoice you and not just recommend the website to you to look and book yourself if you felt appropriate.

Hope this helps. The website has lots of other information too that you might find helpful.

Thanks for that @bbn81 I realised that when delving further into it !

If he gets a Cambridge offer and is at a state school he should be invited to the STEP support programme webinars. Tagging @Pallando as the mumsnet STEP expert. More info here
maths.org/step/

I think Warwick also offer some online support in preparing for STEP but as my DS was watching the Cambridge ones I don't think he bothered. They mention the MEI online tuition here warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/maths/studywithus/ug/entrance-exams/

Please do bear in mind that Cambridge over offer for Maths and about 50% of offer holders don't make the STEP grades and end up at their insurance choice so he needs to pick somewhere he would be happy to go. All the best for offer day.

All he needs to do is past STEP papers

My DS did a MAT but clearly had better teachers at his state school because they were very on top of this

I suppose your DS teachers just aren't fully capable in this area

My DS did loads of past papers to get used to the specific way the questions are asked which are unusual but you need only apply what you've learnt at school

These are useful Esp the Povey one

Warwick is excellent for Maths and STEM so he'll be very happy there if Cambridge doesn't work out.

As for the course they're asking you to pay

This should be covered by the school definitely not you

If the teachers were fully competent this course wouldn't be necessary

Hi @maxplanck

We offer a series of free webinars to all Cambridge UK State school offer holders (usually from mid-March to late May). These are completely free of charge but restricted to students from UK state schools who have a STEP offer from Cambridge - partially due to our funding but also to limit the size of the webinars. The interview preparation webinars give a good idea of the format, but we cover STEP questions and techniques rather than interview specific content: https://maths.org/step/ps-maths-interviews-2024

The MEI/AMSP course is different as they are small group webinars and students can comminate directly with the tutor and each other - so they can all write on the same whiteboard etc. This is something we can't do with 100-200 participants in each webinar, but in ours students can ask questions using the Q and A function and we also have undergraduate volunteers helping answer these and also discussing their own STEP journeys.

The AMSP course is not vital, many students prepare for STEP on their own using past papers and free resources, but it is a nice complement to the free materials and it's the only paid for course that I would recommend people consider (there are some companies out there that will take £100's or even £1000's off you to help with STEP). I think some target students/schools can get the AMSP course for free?

A couple of very useful free resources:

https://maths.org/step/worked-step-papers

https://maths.org/step/specifications-and-specification-support

The STEP2/3 modules on the SSP website also have "topic notes"

https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0181

https://mei.org.uk/resource/03d9c391-fdb9-456c-e520-08d94dd2a8ad/

@maxplanck do feel free to ping me any questions about STEP!

Hi, OP -

I second @Pallando ’s recommendation if the free Cambridge materials, but also her endorsement of the AMSP course.

I am in STEM and my university hosts some regional AMSP programmes. I very occasionally look in because I am Maths adjacent and my School is debating whether to require FM. What I’ve seen has been excellent.

@KittenPause is technically correct. However IMO her approach works best for highly able students who have been lucky enough to receive absolutely top notch teaching. I strongly recommend both programmes above. Best wishes to DS.

@poetryandwine thanks for taking the time to respond, really appreciated!