Is it usual to need a grade A GCSE to do A level maths now?

[Jella2u]

Disappointment here too. Son has got 10 GCSE's grade A-C. So what's the prob? You have no prob! Yes I do!!!
He got a grade B, yes that's right, B for Bertie for Maths. The school (which is a comprehensive turned Academy ) will let him do his Physics, Chemistry and Biology, but not Maths for which they say a Grade A is required unless you've clocked up a total of 224 points between the last 2 module papers. Unfortunately his tally was 205. Husband went up suited and booted to the school this morning to plead son's case. Phoned us this afternoon - no go. Have said this to all who got a B. So nothing personal there.
Have tried to contact other schools this afternoon. Needless to say all are shut. Local Authority very helpful and recommended emailing. Are schools running a clearing system that I don't know about? Do tell.
School did offer Statistics as a replacement this morning, but by this afternoon that was off the menu as no-one wants to do it. There are 7 pupils in this maths grade B situation who want to do A level Maths. Strangely the school says Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Maths are the most difficult subjects. So they might be for most people, but what if your child is the one that has had to struggle with French, Music, English Language and bid their time to do the supposed hard four?
We feel he needs A level maths to support science subjects.
Unfortunately, I said we would be back with an answer as to taking up a place with some sort of substitute for Maths before term starts. Every chance if I can't get something sorted fast he will be a well educated NEET!!!
All ideas welcome. Thanks in advance.

I find that people who don't understand how this can be fair were top set kids. Maths has to be tiered, it would be just horrible for an F grade student to be given the same exam as an A student, and a waste of time for the more able.*

Wasn't this what Gove was whittering on about with his single level GCSEs a few months ago?

Yes he was, Clay. Hopefully some maths teachers managed to talk some sense into him. He has announced new GCSEs for 2015 though, so who knows.

I am going against the grain here. Op, if your son REALLY wants to do A
Level and you believe he is capable of doing so, then go ahead.
However, i would agree with posters who suggest that you spend some time revising some of the harder GCSE topics in order to ensure that your ds has a solid foundation.
FWIW, i think that maths is generally taught really badly in most schools.
I am not a maths teacher, but tutored my neighbour's son who had problems with maths.
He was unable to add and subtract fractions. He problem was that he did not know his tables and therefore it would be impossible for him to understand the concept of the Lowest Common Multiple.
He did not understand directed numbers, so how the hell was he going to
cope with the algebra component of the syllabus?
He has just passed his GCSE maths with an A grade.

So what do children who are top tier GCSE get as a minimum grade? If it's a B surely the school should allow top tier grade B students into it's A level program because they would have done the syllabus and maybe just had a bad exam day?

If a child isn't in the top tier, and therefore hasn't done the full syllabus, they wouldn't be considered for A level and this should have been made very clear by the school before A level choices were made by pupils.

It seems that either OP has misunderstood what her son's "tier" level would allow him to achieve or the school are being rather disingenuous.

The higher tier goes from D grade to A*. Looking at Edexcel grade boundaries as an example, he would have needed 46% to get a B and 66% to get an A.

I don't think it's unreasonable of the school to expect a candidate to be able to get 66% on a GCSE maths paper before attempting A-level.

Mumzy It sounds as though you're right. Each of my 3 maths O levels comprised 3 papers.

The "normal" Maths paper was paper 1 - one multi-choice (mental arithmetic), paper 2 - short answers (mental problem solving such as changing the subject of a formula and basic algebraic problems) and paper 3 - long answers (calculus, trig, harder algebra etc) and for that paper only you were allowed a scientific calculator and log tables. Paper 3 was worth 60% of the overall mark if I remember correctly.

But no pounds shillings and pence involved in any of the papers, given that decimalisation happened in 1971 and I took maths O levels in 1985 and 1986

I think that providing the OP's son has a good grasp of all of these basics - trig, calc, sine rules, algebra etc, he could do the A level with OP's support. I'd certainly tell the school though.

noblegiraffe - wow! I didn't realise the grade thresholds were so low. Back in O level stoneage only the top 5% of students got an A and then the next 15% got a B, next 30% a C etc...

Op perhaps your son could consider retaking his maths GCSE to see if he could get an A or A*?

I'm not sure about the content but there's been a difference in the style of questions even between GCSE papers over the years. The style of questions in the paper my friend took a year ago was very different to the papers I sat in 1998. Didn't seem to have the slightly pointless investigation paper either.

Yes Clay. The old GCSE maths was similar to the O Level paper

Hi Op. Did you print off the Haydon paper suggested earlier. I gave it DD to do today as I thought it was a good suggestion and good revision after nearly 3 months off! DD has done up to q36 so far and found it ok. It is a lot of algebra which is what a lot of AS maths is. Get your DS to do it.then see how he found it. If he found it ok, make an appointment to see your head of maths and take the paper with you. They may be willing to discuss this further if his algebra capability is good.

maths teachers - what kind of level would you expect a child to get at the end of Y7 to then go on to get an A at GCSE?

It's all well and good to provide one-to-one home tuition for Maths A level, but once your DS is at University, how will he cope with the Maths taught within his course? I had a high A grade in single maths, but really struggled with the Maths within my degree and this wasn't unusual.

waspie this year 4.6% got an A*, then 9.4% an A, 16.2% a B and 27.1% a C. The grade boundaries being low doesn't mean loads of kids achieve them.

Nobelgiraffe.

I apologise both to you and my son's school as I think in one of the many computer mailings the school did send a letter asking for A level choice indications.

It was at GCSE that Pathways existed straight away. The school would have been better putting some small print at the bottom "Subject to staff availability". They tried to run GCSE "Control Systems" (instrumentation to you and me) for two years running, but as I understand it couldn't find a teacher. They probably will never be able to as an Instrument Engineer would be unlikely to have a PGCE and wouldn't agree to work on the pittance of an unqualified teacher. The course just quietly disappeared on further paperwork.

The A level blocks when they appeared had plenty of choice in them, but the qualifier should have been there:
"Courses will run subject to take up by enough students".
Statistics was in the blocks last year and this year, but by last Friday afternoon was off again. So has not run for 2 years.

Herd education has to be like this. It's just a pity when it doesn't work out for your child.

Anyway we'll see if the £5.99 superfast delivery for book comes about tomorrow. The Mechanics book will be ordered. If Maths doesn't happen at school it will here. It must for the Physics to be achieved.

buss it is really hard to say as GCSEs are facing a major overhaul in the next couple of years and from what I've read, grade C won't exist any more and will be a number, so all bets are off.

But if your school enters for GCSE at the end of Y11, the expectation was a good level 7 in Y9 to track to an A. So a low level 6 by end of year 7 should get this.
However in real life obviously things aren't always so clear. Students can muff up their schooling in a flood of teenage hormones, or be affected by illness or family circumstances. They can also suddenly click with a subject and shoot ahead above expectations. Progress is also rarely linear so they could stall in Y7 and catch up in Y8. Grade predictions are always to be taken with a hefty pinch of salt.

Are they getting rid of levels in secondary as well as primary,noble?

I'm a bit puzzled by this thread.

We have a child whose mathematical abilities are limited. There is no shame in that. The vast majority of the country (including me) are limited in mathematical skills.

We have an obsessed OP who seems maniacally keen on her DS doing maths. To the extent of going up to the school and complaining etc etc.

The child seems to have no voice here. Does he even want to do maths? Because I bet he doesn't. No-one wants to do subjects they are a bit rubbish at. Me included. Better by far to do subjects you enjoy ...

Jella2U Can I suggest you get the CGP 'Headstart to AS Maths' to go through prior to attempting C1. Recommended as holiday work by one of the 6th forms DD had a an offer at.
(Incidentally, school she will be going to have told them to work through the differentiation module from Mymaths as summer work).

CGP also do a similar Physics book that we also bought. Would recommend that too, especially if your DC has done core & additional science only.

DD has not worked through them fully yet, but says they appear to be revision of the A* topics. Told her she should try and complete them though, as good revision, and she is changing exam boards in both subjects.

Circular

Many thanks.
Will buy books you suggest.
Love CGP style.

I'm not sure it's fair to say his mathematical abilities are limited. According to the numbers noblegiraffe provided he's in the top 1/3 of the country. It's just that that's unlikely to get him more than 'unclassified' at A level.

It is possible to pull that result up with a lot of hard work and motivation but that may be at the risk of damaging his grades in other subjects. Which would look a lot worse on UCAS than not having maths at all. It more a fault of the system/school that there is no bridging qualification at post 16 to keep up the maths skill of those who will need some maths sills at university but not necessarily the full A/AS level.

I have already posted upthread about the dilemma I had about whether to talk DD out of choosing A Level maths.
Just thought that some of the answers to the thread I started at the time here may be of use.

It should be absolutely transparent at Edexcel for parent with results in their mit to discover if their child is at the bottom of a grade or the top.
Haven't discovered it on site. This is essential for students and parents to make decisions.

Still wondering how he has 113 marks for paper 3 when the total marks are 80 as stated on the paper.

There seemed to be a lot of parental intervention all through with Maths and OP's DS still only got a B at GCSE. When my DS did his Maths I didn't have a clue what he had been taught and not taught but he was in the top set all through and just got on with it.

When it came to Maths A level it was recognised which pupils would go on and do it and it was the top group of the top set mainly who got A*/A quite easily.

DS said in the Maths A level he had to do much more work by himself, not all tutored and the ones than couldn't do this were soon floundering with it.

Presume by Edexcel Paper 3, you mean the Geometry 2 paper, as that seems to be the only one out of 80 marks. But the UMS is out of 160.
The boundary for b grade in that paper is 112 - so its a very low b.

Can't remember if you said whether it was a high or low B overall? the B boundary would be 280 and A boundary 320 out of the total UMS of 400.
So did he get a low B, or a high B that could have been an A if that paper was better?

Not familiar with the content of that paper, as DD did Edexcel linear.

"Still wondering how he has 113 marks for paper 3 when the total marks are 80 as stated on the paper."

It sounds as if it's Edexcel modular. Paper 3 is marked out of 80 but then given a UMS score out of 160 with the conversion depending on the difficulty of the paper. This summer you needed 42/80 to get a 'C' (96 UMS). 112 UMS is what is needed for a B, so 113 would be a low B.