Oxford to drop PAT, MAT, TSA, etc

[Muu9]

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/guide/admissions-tests

Thoughts? I think it's a bad move for physics, as the time-pressured nature ESAT simply isn't very good at spotting the deep thinkers most physics programs look for.

AMSP still run online tuition go FM in the r way that they’ve done for years - if that’s not obvious that’s an issue.

The AMSP has always sat within MEI, but you’re right - with the change in funding from the government they no longer offer all of the student events, you may read about project they’re running with certain schools (these have been promoted and supported by the government and were mentioned in the recent curriculum review).

The university admissions test support is only for state schools as I said and in fact in many cases is further selected towards disadvantaged students (as they’re often working with universities who have these requirements too)

This is why there’s funding for the university admissions tests <a class="break-all" href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/xtx-markets_government-must-check-its-sums-on-maths-investment-activity-7302415967920238592-Um44#:~:text=XTX%20Markets%27%20Post,lnkd.in/gZsk_nb4" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/posts/xtx-markets_government-must-check-its-sums-on-maths-investment-activity-7302415967920238592-Um44#:~:text=XTX%20Markets'%20Post,lnkd.in/gZsk_nb4

I’m struggling to find the incorrect MEI strap line

Sorry top line about step and mat

They have fixed it! They have updated the MAT info to say MAT is being discontinued and put the STEP registration info under the STEP header.

It was the entire university. International students prefer London universities it seems. Also because it's a STEM only university it's very male dominated whereas Warwick has a more balanced male/female ratio.

It's down to personal preference in the end.

We thought Warwick offered a good balance of excellent maths degree which is extremely well regarded with a much lower cost of living and more girls and home students.

DS is likely to need to do a masters for his chosen career and he will apply to Imperial at that point. He can live at home as we're in London so no accommodation costs and social life is less of an issue for PG.

It wasn’t obvious to me that I as an eager pupil could pursue this, no. The site is not very encouraging. Perhaps if you register you get more encouragement. But I don’t think the top layer is pupil friendly.

Also, The Student Room and Reddit have a number of posts from pupils whose schools have said they do not participate with AMSP. These pupils write that they are effectively barred from FM. We and others do not require FM mainly because of our own perception that not all British pupils can access it. We revisit the issue every few years.

I have heard that AMSP/MEI charge schools, but haven’t verified this. That would be a logical, if sad, reason that some won’t participate.

The older website contained much more and was pupil friendly. I was involved in my uni’s STEM outreach. We collaborated with our local FMSN co-ordinator, who transitioned to AMSP and was made redundant during the cutbacks last year although they were excellent.

Aah, I can see that. The student tuition has to be organised through schools - that’s always been the case. It’s frustrating if schools are not allowing students to get tuition through the AMSP, there is a fee, but it’s far cheaper than them offering it themselves. I don’t know what the way around this is.

Which university are you based at? I accept that you might not want to answer that. I know that quite a few have the same concern. If you look at the numbers studying FM since the early 2000’s when the FM network (later the FMSP and then the AMSP) were set up it’s staggering so what they were doing has made a difference.

I agree the changes to the focus of the work is frustrating - you’re not the only one who thinks that. I also struggle with the new website!

keep an eye out though - there may be more coming.

What has changed, at least in London, are the sixth form choices available for talented mathematicians. Kings Maths School is the obvious. But Brampton, Harris Westminster and others including the various grammar and selective schools. Is this making a difference to number of applicants from less traditional backgrounds able to make credible applications to top maths departments. Their destination statistics tend to suggest they are effectively bridging the gap.

These are very good points.

DS would very much prefer

-lower cost of living
-more girls
-high standard of maths

hadn't thought about the ratio M:F, another good argument for Warwick

The specialist Maths schools and colleges are excellent. A few regional ones exist now and I think a few more are planned.

I am not sure who is attracted to them, or what their overall impact will be. How competitive is entry? Does the entrance task really assess raw talent or, as we’ve seen with the university entrance exams, do familiarity and preparation play a big part in who succeeds?

In any case i agree with you that these schools are very likely to be a positive step. It is a question of degree.

Thanks for this.

I hope MEI, which is after all a charity with government grants, will find a way to make FM free for pupils and their schools when certain socioeconomic indicators are met. It is the only equitable way forward. I appreciate that this is a big ask but I honestly think it is a better use of funds than some of what MEI advertises.

Cutting funds for the FMSP seemed very short sighted, though I appreciate that was HMG rather than MEI.

Looking forward to developments

unfortunately the government grants come with government stipulations, they’re funded for specific projects. The cost of FM is less than what schools get for funding for a student studying it, I agree though that I’d love to see more of a focus on it.

it becomes a catch 22 - universities don’t ask for it, so schools don’t feel they need to offer it. Fewer schools offer it so universities don’t ask for it. In may ways FM offers a better insight into maths at university than admissions tests do because of the abstract maths that single maths students never see, so much of it is what you need to support subjects like engineering and physics and even economics. Going back down to 3 A Levels hasn’t helped either, although the numbers don’t stop as you’d have expected.

the university that I worked at didn’t ask for FM for the same reason as you, although for a time they did lower their offer for students who had it. The issue seems to be that the number of maths students is decreasing - I think we’re passed the population hump, but also students are applying to data science instead an AI is whether government focus is now.

Yes - I’d be interested to see what a difference they make too. I wasn’t in favour at first. My worry was that they’d take the best student from local schools and cause FM not to be viable there’re and I’m still not sure they increase numbers.

i think the schools have very different policies for admission- the one I visited recently has a big priority on disadvantaged and I really do feel it had a lot of students who might not fit in elsewhere. It had a lovely atmosphere.

the biggest issues with them in my opinion is the gender split. Because of the subjects they’re offering (generally maths, FM, physics, chemistry and computer science) they’re missing out on girls who quite often do FM with an arts subject - I think they should add philosophy or psychology to the menu. I know of at least one that is next to a sixth form college so presumably can offer other subjects so I’d be interested to see if that makes a difference

Further maths has definitely made a resurgence over the last 20 years, but government funding to schools for A levels has made it hard to offer subjects with fewer pupils (languages have had a big issue with this too) although I guess the high value course premium helps,

If you are in any doubt you can pull up the very frantic Kings Medical School thread in secondary education where anxious parents complain about how much priority is given to kids from more deprived backgrounds.

You will also see my complaint that they are using buildings that were formally a GP practice. The practice is now homeless so KMS is less than popular locally.

That said kids come from far and wide and they do appear to see their role as providing for talented mathematicians who are not in the right teaching environment. Their results are extra-ordinary. My understanding is that Kings and others realised there is not point in giving widening access places if the students involved, though talented are not ready to thrive on a top course. They need to be reached earlier. London is lucky in now having a number of magnet sixth forms, and there are others elsewhere, some that offer boarding. In other places schools have formed consortia which allows maths g&t programmes that bring together and stretches the strongest sixth formers in the area.

I wonder whether more might be done earlier. The maths challenges help, but for a pupil who finds concepts easy, maths classes up to GCSE, where the aim is to get everyone to a C, must be very boring.

Interesting.

I agree early intervention - that may be the wrong word - is very helpful for preparing pupils for these opportunities. Yes, the standard early maths classes can be sleep inducing! The last thing one wants is to make kids vulnerable to teasing or worse, but they do need early opportunities to thrive.

IMO a big reason it is so difficult to widen participation effectively is that pupils and their families are not reached early enough. And yet schools and budgets are already stretched to the breaking point. It’s very difficult.

Where can I find evidence for the fact that schools get more funding per student taking FM than it costs to pay for it through AMSP? How do schools apply for that funding?

Also @ninja can't universities like yours simply say "A level FM is required from students whose 6th form offers it"?

Sadly not in a university any more! I think it’s a hard message to give that you have different requirements and some universities prefer to pick up the best students where FM isn’t offered.

@Needmoresleep What are some of the consortia of g&t you were referring to?

Schools all over the country group together in different ways. Westminster City Council used to have a pretty wild consortium that used to allow pupils in their schools to race across London to take low demand A levels in other schools. I assume that this proved too much of a timetabling challenge, but some of these schools still access teaching (Greek, Russian etc) in nearby private schools. All I can see now is a procurement consortium (same school dinners across the borough), though in London at least it is common for schools, state and private to work together on things like security or transport.

A friend's son is a maths teacher in a rural area where average attainment is not great, and they had a programme where g&t where talented mathematicians from schools across the area were brought together for extension lessons.

I guess it depends on both local need and how organised the education authority is.

Many years ago a neighbour who was a primary school teacher popped round. DS, year 6, was doing his homework and the neighbour was shocked. DS should not be doing that level maths at primary school. (DS was on track for Common Entrance and it was not unusual for them to be given GCSE questions.) I was equally shocked that a teacher would suggest holding children back. DCs prep school offered a weekly extension class for higher flyers in reception and year one before they started setting and I can remember DD aged six coming home and telling me about the concept of negative infinity with some excitement. Grades and league tables have their place but at times they can suck the fun out of education.

Maths extension for yrs 7-11:

https://wesolveproblems.org.uk/maths-circles/

There’s loads out there online and in person at local unis and summer camps (some at ££).

The funding specifically for Further Maths A level is tricky if there isn’t a critical mass of pupils. London is another country in that it’s relatively easy to combine pupils from different schools or choose a 6th form that offers it even if you have to travel a bit - bus travel is free for 6th formers in London - and there are also lots of private schools offering extension activities and interview/exam prep as well as the specialist schools. Plus I think London schools get more £ per pupil?? (I do wonder how a school can attract the best maths teachers if they don’t have the opportunity to teach Further maths - isn’t that a bit career-limiting??)

It’s surprising that the govt cut funding for the Further maths/extension programmes. The sums involved were really quite small and STEM/AI is supposed to be a govt priority. Plus Rachel Reeves is very proud of studying double maths herself at her state school - something she wasn’t prepared to support for others……

I've read this too and with a DC planning to apply to uni in 2027. I noted that the PAT has been replaced by ESAT at Oxford. Have a friend whose daughter started the course there two years ago. She didn't actually do very well at all in the ESAT test (think she applied for Imperial).

@poetryandwine said they're not keen on ESAT, I'd love to hear more, genuinely interested.

Do agree with @poetryandwine about it probably providing more equity having less tests and tests you can sit that open up doors not just for Oxbridge.

The people I've noted who have applied to Oxbridge generally, are either those with extremely high performing (natural ability) kids in the state sector who have been approached or those with relatives who went to Oxbridge themselves. The other big group is - teachers.

I noted this several years on the trot, at my DC's (independent) school but also elsewhere. I did see a Freedom of Information request about this too, which lists that the top spot in terms of parental occupation for offer holders at Oxford is teachers!! I guess they do know the system, as it were, and probably encouraged learning in a different way possibly. But isn't it fascinating? 9% of offer holders at Oxbridge have parents who are teachers. So this doesn't even take into account those who have grandparents who are, many often involved with their grandkids' education.

What I have noted about many of these kids is that, although clearly bright, not all are what I would term 'exceptional'. They are exceptionally hard working and exceptionally well prepared so they do get all 9s and A*. But many have not stood out as 'exceptional' minds when speaking with them about 'novel' things or other things that go on in the world. I can't quite articulate it, but apart from maybe a couple - most just seemed very, very bright and very, very hardworking and prepared, but not 'novel thinkers'.

So, maybe, the TARA - which is supposed to assess innate ability - is a better and more 'fair' test than more subject-specific ones. I don't know. But I'm sure Oxford will have many more applications now that students don't have to double-up so much on tests.

Hi, @livelifeandenjoyit

What you’ve written about teachers’ DC (and presumably academics’ as well) is fascinating. It doesn’t surprise me, though I tend to see it as an important example of the theme wherein those in the know help their DC to navigate the system. Another equity issue. Discouraging that help would be wrong but this is why effective outreach at scale is desperately needed

I don’t think ESAT is awful. We don’t have readily available past papers yet, so I am going off what I have heard, and what I know about the format.

It isn’t necessarily bad that it’s multiple choice; so is TMUA. But TMUA has two 70 minute sections each with 40 questions. ESAT has three 40 minute sections (with Maths 1 taken by all, and the other two chosen from Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Maths 2), each with 27 questions: just over one minute per question. It seems similar to an old Engineering admissions exam that was constructed and administered by Cambridge. But that had substantial questions, focused on Maths and Physics, and fewer of them (also MC). When you have less than 90 sec/question, the questions are necessarily limited in scope.

My sense from putting together the snippers of knowledge I have is that ESAT is trying to be all things to all people and in so doing has become a much less substantive exam or test.