Option to take GCSE foundation paper end of Y6

[StillRunningWithScissors]

We've had a letter home offering after school tutoring in maths for our DC. It's offered to children in year 6 at my child's primary school where they have consistently scored above 130 on the standardized test in Y5 and 6.
The aim is for them to be able to sit the foundation maths GCSE paper in May/June.
DC loves maths, and is eager to do this. The tutoring is to be done by the head teacher, so no cost to us.
Are there any downsides to this?

Absolutely totally utterly ridiculous.
This has no benefits for your child.
It is purely imo to give boasting rights to the school (and parents).

I am sure @noblegiraffe will have a view and will explain why it's a completely daft idea.

Yes, it’s a complete and pointless waste of time.

A kid who loves maths should given enrichment activities not drilled to sit a pointless exam.

And tutoring them to cover content that they will have to sit through again in Y7 won’t enhance their enjoyment of maths, it will probably give them a poor start to secondary school as they get bored.

Hah, Teen, I’m on it already

They'd be better off expanding via a coding club or the lowest level of kangaroo/Olympiad papers, not sitting an exam meant for 16yos and only just scraping a pass (you can only get a 5 with the foundation paper, the scale goes up to 9). There are 4.5 hours of GCSE maths papers!

This is really daft. There is an amazing opportunity there to explore a world of advanced topics that's being wasted. There is nothing to be gained by sitting a GCSE so young, it might even turn such young students off.

Genuinely can’t think of any positives to this idea.

Why doesn’t the head get them to work on parallel.org.uk/ , or nrich.maths.org/

What's the point? I did my GCSE's when with the traditional grade system, not numbers and I don't quite get it, hopefully you know what. Umbers they equate too! But a foundation paper they can only receive a maximum of a C? What is the point?

I can see the argument for staggering as less stressful on teenagers. But 11 is too early to start and seems particularly pointless for a foundation paper.

Absolutely no point. Every child I have seen do this has absolutely hated maths in secondary as they had been drilled into exam papers so knew how to do things but now don't have any love of maths.

Expand by looking at the maths challenge, nrich, coding, SO many things but not more exams...

And don't forget DC will need to declare the GCSE on their UCAS form. So fast forward, say DC wants to study Maths, how impressed do you think the uni's will be with a 5 in the GCSE? Yes, you can resit but you still have to declare every attempt.

Which child would you offer a place? The one who got 8/9 on first attempt or the one who got 5? They won't be remotely impressed with the fact DC took it in Primary School, they'll just think it's bloody ridiculous. Which it is, obvs.

No. This is utter snake oil, and poison for a budding mathematician.

If your dc is in Y5 or Y6 and needs stretching, I recommend the Primary Maths Challenge, or if they’re really good, the Junior Maths Challenge from UKMT. Dr Frost Maths has lots of questions on it.

Nrich is excellent. Parallel is a bit watered down from its original description of top top set challenges, but a Y5/Y6 bright child should enjoy some of the Y7/Y8 material. The UKMT has lots of past papers available and some books on particular topics.

Watching Numberphile videos on YouTube, and Matt Parker videos also, will stretch young mathematicians.

Plodding through a syllabus designed for older, less mathematically oriented students, will do nothing for them. Nothing. Just male secondary school maths even more dull, and when they’re asked for their grade in GCSE maths (first time not a retake) they’ll have to say 4 or whatever the ceiling for Foundation Maths is.

If nothing else, there's a high chance it'll make her hate maths, which would be a shame.

Unless you can take higher paper and get 9, what is the point?
My dc got 130+ constantly on the test's in yr5/6, doesn't mean they were capable of doing that well.
On the other hand, there was a child who actually did that on G&T board, then maybe worth it.
Maths is so deep and fun. Like others said, it's way better to explore and extend problem solving skills at this age than jump into learning something just for an exam.

What’s a ridiculous idea
I have a very maths able child and there is a world of stuff they can do via school without this silly notion (and what use is a 5 now when they are likely to retake to get a higher grade later if they are a capable student?)

Olympiad is a great challenge

Thanks everyone. I'm not from the UK originally, so struggle a bit with the education system. I've basically been keeping up with where my DC is to be honest.

I had thought that it might mean it was flagged as a first attempt, and if it means a mark against them, then it does sound a mad idea.

Frustrating, as coding club or deeper maths type of things would be great!

The head also runs a Latin club at the school, so it does smack a bit of making the school look good.

I appreciate all the feedback. Thank you.

Feedback to the school
Ask for their reasons and specifically how this benefits the child given all the alternatives they could offer

There's nothing wrong with Latin at primary school

Agree with isitxmasyet, wonder what they are trying to achieve. One thing I can assume is that they are not thinking about benefit or progres for children, but they are thinking about their reputation that they may get.

It probably impresses some parents more to hear that their child will be doing GCSE Maths in Y6 rather than extra Maths for bright kids.
But yes, the issue is that foundation GCSE Maths just tests basic but more advanced skills. It doesn’t require much thinking/solving skills etc so the children would be better off getting challenged that way instead of learning the basics of the secondary curriculum.

On the other hand it's probably better than doing nothing extra. The sad thing is that the very brightest Y6's will already be in a much better position to take that foundation GCSE than some of bottom set Y11 will be this year (even without learning any of the extra content)

dootball I disagree, I think doing nothing extra would be preferable to taking foundation GCSE maths in y6.

I'm with the "doing this is much much worse than doing extra" camp. Send her to Latin club and do fun extension maths at home

And don't get pressured by any "but all the clever children are doing it" or "she'll feel left out rubbish".