Best gcse exam for d grade maths student?

[olivevoir58]

My dd is in Y11. Her high performing CE comp do OCR modular maths. Last year their gcse results took a massive nose dive, mainly due to the C/D borderline students stuffing up maths rather than English. From reading the TES forum, it seems that lower attainers generally did very badly with this exam. I am myself a maths teacher/consultant and my dd is ex LAC (I adopted her aged 8) and also has an EBD statement. She is of average intelligence and is on course to achieve Bs and Cs in her other subjects. She has ADHD and specific visual processing difficulties. All of these factors mean that school are listening to my request to switch her to a different maths exam. So I am looking for advice about what to switch her to. My thinking at this moment is to suggest double entering with the edexcel maths certificate (igcse for state school). The foundation exam looks very straightforward with smaller emphasis on using and applying and shape and space, both of which she especially struggles with. Does anyone have any knowledge of which exam would give her the best chance of achieving a 'c'. She got a 'd' on the OCR module she took at the end of Y10.

It's really difficult to second guess which exam will be easiest this time around, but does seem that the modular students and especially the OCR ones drew the short straw last time. It could all go the other way this year, but Edexcel linear seems to be a popular choice and double entry with the certificate sounds like a good plan.

It's not just about playing the system (though obviously if she could get a C first time, life will be so much easier next year), the OCR papers do seem truly bizarre and aimed at tripping kids up rather than letting them show what they can do. Dd did a mock with the November resit paper. As I say, I'm a maths consultant/teacher myself and it took me a good couple of minutes to fathom the first question (on the foundation tier paper) asking a mad money sequencing question about amount of saving in a shop sale where the amount saved was 3.50 in every 10 pound. It was very difficult. This set the tone for the rest of the paper for dd. from then on she lost confidence with even the questions that I know she can easily do. She needs a paper that starts both with the very easy and the very predictable and then she will cope with the C grade questions at the end.

My daughter got a E in June 2011 mock and C in November 2011 Execel linear foundati

Foundation paper. She did a lot of basic question revision - like areas etc over summer holidays and of course she was sitting just before the new practical questions came in.

I'm not sure whether you are a maths teacher/consultant or a maths consultant/teacher, please excuse my ignorance as I've not taught in the UK for some years and am unfamiliar with both terms.

If you are a maths teacher, surely you will have all the information at your finger tips.

OCR modular results last June were dreadful mainly due to an extraordinarily high C grade boundary on the higher tier module 3. Students who entered for OCR linear did relatively ok, I think.

My school does Edexcel linear foundation with kids who have failed to get a C in their first two modules and have achieved decent levels of success. However, Gove has said that he wants maths GCSE to be harder this year (in addition to being linear) and with the falling pass rate last year, I would think all bets are off as to the best way forward.

Complex number - I'm a specialist maths teacher in a primary school part time and a maths consultant part time. Before that I was a local authority consultant for 10 years. My point is that I understand how children learn maths (and especially my dd), I do not have the specific knowledge of gcse exam boards, hence my question.

Thanks Kez and NG, I worked with some students last year who were doing edexcel linear and it seemed pretty straightforward. NG - did the foundation tier OCR kids do better than the c grade higher tier kids? Even with the 1st module, my dds year were 14% down on the previous year (who themselves were 12% down with their final grade than the year before.) so it doesn't look good for my dds year and I know school are very worried and are implementing many knee jerk reactions (like getting some borderline kids to drop a subject to concentrate on maths) but they so far haven't done the most obvious thing - switch exams for those most at risk.

Could you not just look through a few past papers of each- or print them out and try them on your DD ?
I think OP you are better qualified than any of us to make this decision