A level further maths - why is it treated so differently?

[TheBeautifulVisit]

I'm just wondering about further maths. In further maths A level 58% achieved A or A grade versus 12.7% achieved A or A grade in ICT in 2013, source here: www.telegraph.co.uk/education/leaguetables/10247947/A-level-results-2013-national-results-by-subject-and-gender.html

Why are students discouraged from sitting further maths if it seems likely they'll go on to achieve anything but the top grades? Why are schools unhappy for students to countenance a C or a D grade in further maths but are perfectly happy for students to take ICT, even though they can reasonably expect to achieve a C or D grade?

It makes no sense to me at all. We are short of computer scientists and a further maths at C or D grade would be very useful, possibly much more useful than a similar or higher grade in ICT.

Why do we support this system? Surely we should be encouraging children to study as much maths as possible for as long as possible?

Can somebody please explain to me why further maths is treated so preciously?

I agree with MollyMawk, I am pretty good at Maths as are my kids and I use calculus on a regular basis in my job. But once we got to complex numbers, my head exploded. So maybe it is a either-get-it-or-you-don't subject and that maybe explains the high percentage of A/A*.

That high percentage does rather entice you/your kids to do it though, doesn't it?

Complex numbers are essential to some science and engineering subjects - are they only covered in FM? (I'm old so did separate Pure and Applied maths, so no idea what is considered as 'further' ... complex numbers despite their name seem to me relatively straightforward.)

unis are reluctant to make it part of their entry requirements, then you see then moaning that A-level maths isn't a good enough grounding for their degree programme
DS went to an open day at Nottingham. They said not to worry if you were not doing further maths because it would be covered in the first year.
He is doing FM and didn't want to spend his first degree year going over old ground.

Yourlittlesecret the step up from A level to degree level maths is quite something so your DS might be glad of having a bit of an advantage. Even when most of the students have further maths A level they still have to go over stuff again in the first year because everyone has studied different modules.

From the wording of the trinity guidelines, FM isn't made an absolute requirement because not all schools offer it.

Don't worry yourlittlesecret, when I went to university there were two first year maths courses, one for those with FM and one for those without. This may be what is offered at Nottingham for whatever course your DS is applying for.

My chemistry degree had two different subsid maths courses depending on what maths A-levels you'd done.

Why would you do further maths if you were only going to get a C or D? You'd be better off getting a higher mark in a different subject.

Also, you don't need FM to become a computer programmer, that's a misconception that I wish people didn't believe as then we might have more programmers! For Engineering and Physics at uni, then yes, FM is very useful. Even if the universities don't require it. But for CS I think you'd be fine with just maths.

I agree with getting kids to study maths for as long as possible, but I think it's better done by having more people doing maths a-level, not more doing further maths :)

'computer programmer' can mean all sorts of things. I could be called a programmer, writing code is what I do - but the entry level for what I do is PhD chemistry - for some sorts of programming knowing a subject to write about is what's important. So in some cases FM will be useful; but for some applications science subjects or arts or humanities might actually be what's needed, so long as you can write good enough code.

A-Level Further Maths is a lot harder, and I mean a lot, harder than A-Level Maths. From the very first lesson you will be chucked in the deep end with matricies and then go onto set theroy and it just goes on...

The reason A-Level Further Maths is so hard (in my opinion) is because every single piece of content you learn is completly new, furthermore, once you have learnt that content you are expected to rememebr it and apply it in other topics.

Therefore, if you a miss a lesson you will understand the next topic and therefore, the topic after that - which can cause you to fall behind massively.

If you want a full explaination and complete breakdown of how hard A-Level Further Maths really is, check out this article.

Note - this thread has been resuscitated after 5 years and some of the discussion about GCSE and A level content and structure is obsolete.

And re the last post, in the event my DD somehow got an A* in FM but an A in maths.

YET ANOTHER ZOMBIE MATHS THREAD