Dd doesn't have a maths teacher

[dingit]

Yr11, 10 of class got GCSE last year, now doing additional maths. They sit in with the class doing GCSE work, with one teacher, who naturally take up most of the teachers time. They don't seem to do a lot during the lesson, they do some self study, but are still just getting used to this way of working. They then have a lesson after school once a week with the teacher.
I keep emailing in to complain, but no one really seems concerned, dd seems to be wasting her year. Anyone got any idea what to do?

DD is also theoretically doing this course, but in practice this means sitting quietly while the others are given their lesson, then being given a worksheet with a difficult maths problem to get on with.

She was upset not to go on to A level, and was beginning to loose confidence, so I bought her the relevant course work books and am doing the course with her at home.

If you go on the OCR FSMQ website there is all the information of what books to get and a lesson plan of 60 hours for the time they reckon is needed to teach the course. www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/free-standing-maths-qualification-fsmq-additional-mathematics-6993/

Good luck to your dd. Hope she regains her confidence and love of maths.

Go into the school and say that you are thinking of moving your daughter to another school if things don't improve.

Her excellent results will then go to the other school, if you do it before the end of January.

This will focus the Head's attention as he or she won't want results to drop.

There is a shortage of maths teacher but it isn't that hard to find someone who could teach his class....off the top of my head.

1. Hire a PE teacher on supply to teach maths to Year 7 and 8 thus freeing up a maths teacher.

1. Hire someone who is a private tutor who is happy to teach a small group of very able students. It wouldn't take too long to find someone suitable.

Your daughter has already got an A. She has already served her purpose for the school and their league tables. Threaten to take her away and you'll get a resolution to this problem.

Wouldn't OP have to pay a fee for a resit? Why would an A benefit the girl so much more? Sounds like the 6th form are happy with the additional maths, why would A in GCSE be preferable at this point?

If they were going to pay a fee to enter her for additional maths then there would be no cost to the school to enter her for GCSE instead.

An A* at GCSE is definitely better than an A for starting A-level. And it would certainly be better than another U at additional maths.
If the school was confident that they could put her through additional maths and get her a top grade in that, then that would be better than GCSE, but there is no evidence that the school is going to do this when they have already failed to once, and they aren't actually teaching her the course.

So, do I leave it and see what her mock result is like? Thing is, I don't want to upset her, she has enough on her plate, in a few weeks she sits an exam for a scholarship.
Noble, in your experience, do those with an A do worse than those with an A* at A level? ( bearing in mind she got the A in year 9)

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/183942/DFE-RR195.pdf

Look at the table on page 25 of impact on A-level grade of GCSE grade in maths. 72% of those who got an A at GCSE go on to get A/A at A-level, where only 24% of those who get an A at GCSE get the top grades. That A* will make a big difference to her chances of doing well.

The fact that she got the A in Y9 is worse than if she got the A in Y11, because she hasn't really done any constructive maths since then so has had plenty of time to forget it all.

So are you saying the additional is a waste of time? Last year her maths teacher said there was some cross over with GCSE. I'm so confused, although I see what you mean on the DFE tables.

Additional maths wouldn't be a waste of time if she was actually being taught it properly, but she isn't. Being taught A* GCSE maths in her lessons would be better than sitting staring at a book she needs help to understand.

If she could still attend the after school additional maths sessions, that would be useful.

Ok, thanks Noble. I think I now need to have a conversation with dd and maths teacher.

Being taught A GCSE maths in her lessons would be better than sitting staring at a book she needs help to understand.*

This. Every word.

I don't have a maths degree, but I've got an Erdos number of 4 and I've done a decent amount of undergraduate maths (mostly discrete maths).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd?s_number

When I first looked through the FSMQ textbook, there wasn't anything in there that's overly scary, but it's a bloody sight harder than GCSE and includes threshold concepts

blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseteachingblog/2012/10/11/threshold-concepts/

everywhere you look. Differential calculus means subtle reasoning about infinitesimals. Linear programming is new in every regard. The idea that someone with an A at GCSE could self-teach this effectively is preposterous. I supported my children doing it, well taught in a class doing nothing else, and it was a challenging exam. OP, your daughter needs an intervention.

Reading through this thread, I'm coming increasingly to the conclusion that my own dd is just going through a time wasting exercise in maths lessons until the others have caught up. She does not even seem to be following the course work for FSMQ she was promised she would be doing.
I do go in for regular meeting with the school and certainly if your dd has gone from A at GCSE one year to U at FSMQ the next, I think you have every right to ask for a meeting to find out what is not working in your dd's education. I'm just concerned the same is about to happen to my dd.

Is your dd doing the OCR Advanced FSMQ? If so, at school, is she working through the recommended text book published by Hodder? Do you know if the school are actually teaching the course? My own dd is just handed sheets with questions to work through when the rest have been given their lesson. The teacher then helps her for a few minutes here and there if she gets stuck, between helping others and marking books. As you can imagine, I'm not happy and more to the point neither is she, which is why I'm doing the course with her at home. However dd is not in her GCSE year so this option may not be open to you?

Another option may be to forget the FSMQ retake and spend the time working on AS topics if she is wanting to go on to A level next year, giving her a year of learning maths for fun without the pressure of an exam at the end and building up her skills for A level.

Another option may be to forget the FSMQ retake and spend the time working on AS topics if she is wanting to go on to A level next year

The core topics of AS and FSMQ are pretty much the same, and are certainly at a similar level, so if they're struggling with one without support, they're struggle with the other.

It seems that FSMQ is a really good course and I agree, because it goes into "Threshold Concepts", it is excellent grounding for A level if taught properly.

After years of treading water at school, I'm now struggling to persuade dd that school is somewhere where children are taught maths.
I was thinking more that, if there is someone in the OP's family who could teach maths, just getting back some of the interest without learning to an exam for a year might be a good move, especially with all the other GCSEs to concentrate on.

Well, just bitten the bullet and emailed in , and copied in the head of year 11.
Just had a chat with dd but seem to be going round in circles, and she is getting upset. The long and short of it is she sits at the back of the GCSE class for 9 lessons a fortnight, not really knowing what she's doing and getting bored, and dare I say it, a bit disruptive, something she's never done before. She seems very much against a GCSE retake for some reason, but that is something I will be discussing with the teacher.

DH is busy doing calculus with her as I type.

she sits at the back of the GCSE class for 9 lessons a fortnight, not really knowing what she's doing and getting bored

It's too late to help you now, OP, but out of interest: when the school offered your daughter the opportunity to sit GCSE maths early, what did they say was the benefit to her? Because "do this and you can sit at the back of the class for 9 lessons a fortnight" doesn't seem a compelling proposition, really.

We did ask what she would do post GCSE, but they weren't going to admit to not having the resources to teach her! Actually, I don't think that they actually gave any thought to what they would do. I'm annoyed with myself to be honest. I wonder what happens in other schools?

in my experience they don't "offer" this option they just inform you and in year 9 the children and parents know no better .The earlier poster is right the school are not interested now because she has the A for their league tables .

I wish mine would get a bit more disruptive, then they would not get the impression she is happy in the lessons and perhaps even teach her some maths. And I'd not have to sit through another meeting with the bullshit meter pinging to red.

She probably sees GCSE maths again as a backward step and an admission of failure, like moving down a set. She needs to see it as a complete failure on the part of the school to support her in her studies rather than an issue with her maths ability. Have you shown her that DfE table of maths grade versus a-level result?

They are essentially asking a GCSE student to self teach aspects of A-level that a lot of students in Y12 with full teaching time and support struggle with. Even before you get to the issue of whether a Y10/11 student has the skills to manage their own learning, this course is tough. Ask the school if they would consider leaving Y12s sat at the back of someone else's class teaching themselves AS level maths a recipe for success, and if that would not be a reasonable expectation for them, then why is it for your DD? What is she supposed to gain from this experience? Point to the complete failure of this method in Y10 as evidence that it's not working.

As a contrast, I currently teach top set Y11. We are not doing OCR additional maths, but we are doing AQA further maths, which is similar to additional maths in that it includes concepts such as calculus and pushes their algebra and trigonometry. Further maths is easier than additional maths (it counts as level 2), although it is still pretty difficult.
We will be putting them in for both GCSE maths and further maths in June of Y11. There are some in the group who could have sat GCSE earlier and got an A, but putting a subgroup through then causes problems that your DD is experiencing. The others who would not have got the A earlier are still benefitting from being pushed with the FM as it will help them when it comes to A-level, even if they don't get top grades in it (a C is 18% so they should get a reasonable grade). I teach GCSE and FM alongside each other. There is no doubt that the class struggle with the FM more than GCSE and they need more input and support when we are doing those topics. As you would expect. The idea that you would give them less support and input on harder topics is just bizarre to me. Don't they want all children to do their best?

Just to add in our experience. Dds school are adamantly against doing gcse maths early, even for the most able. They don't do any further maths. Dd has been off curriculum teaching herself since part way through year 7 (she's year 10 now) doing a variety of things. At present she is working her way through the various UKMT publications. She teaches herself at the back of the class, I'm not entirely happy about that but she is very motivated, content and understanding it. Her teacher is putting aside one lunchtime a week to mentor her - which I'm very grateful for as that is a big commitment for a teacher for one student. I don't know what else they can do at this point.

Your DD sounds extraordinary, kitten and while there are undoubtedly some kids who could teach themselves complex maths at a young age, they are rare, certainly not a subset of each year's cohort.

For those children, I really don't know what I'd advise. GCSE entry well before Y11 (say Y7/8) then causes the problem of running out of secondary school maths to teach them before sixth form. What do they do then? The UKMT stuff is good, but you are lucky that she is self-motivated. It sounds quite lonely doing it on your own, when a lot of advanced maths is a collaborative effort. Does your DD go to university master classes or similar?

Our sixth form closed at the end of the summer. They therefore don't need any more maths grades from DD, am I right in saying if she retook and got an A*, they couldn't use it on their league table?

Noble, I told her about the DFE statistics, and her reply was she only needs a B to do A level maths . It's time to end any discussions with her, as she is getting narky, and find out what the teacher has to say on the bullshitometer, as the other poster said. You're not in Surrey too by any chance?

My problem is I don't know much about maths, I could do with some of you to come to the meeting with me.

The only needing a B to do A Level maths is rubbish. All the maths teachers I know agree that the most likely grade for anyone taking A Level maths with less than an A at GCSE is a U. DH (a maths teacher) says that anyone with a B at GCSE has at best a 50% chance of passing at AS.

That's a good point, dingit, if she took her maths in Y9, that was before the rules for early entry came in in October 2013. Those rules said that only the first attempt at a GCSE would count for the league tables. However, the new rules would not apply retrospectively to those who had already sat their GCSE. So if your DD sits her maths again in y11 and improves her grade, her improved grade would be the one that counts and would be used for the league tables.

Her assertion that she only needs a B to do A-level is merely about being allowed onto the course. If she wants to do well at A-level, then her best chance of that is if she has an A*. Those DfE statistics need to be taken under caution too, as they suggest that it is possible to get a good grade at A-level with a B at GCSE, but that only includes students who managed to get past AS. Most students who got a B at GCSE and started AS maths wouldn't appear in that graph because they dropped out before Y13.