Do New Maths GSCES have tiers?

[knittingwithnettles]

Are there foundation and higher papers still?

What would be end of Year 7 NC score that would suggest a student go for F or H? Long back story but son has been out of school for a while, and not up to date with tests or topics, although certainly of average mathematical ability when he was last in school.

Can children become instrinsically worse at Maths; surely they can only get better? I understand there might be a ceiling beyond which your average child might not go in understanding mathematical concepts, not all of us can do Maths A level, but if a child was performing fine, average in Year 7, wouldn't you expect him to make up for lost ground in the right set with help/tutoring at home? Or is the remedial class actually the best place for him? He is happy enough there, but says everythign they do is incredibly easy and takes him two minutes, so they give him more of the same rather than upping the difficulty...He is beginning to complain it is boring. He is in Year 10. It is a new school.

He has had a lot of Maths tutoring over last year and a half, but a gap before he started school again, due to difficulties securing the placement and then going part-time for first few weeks (no tutoring over this period of three weeks before he took the test unannounced at school)

There are lower and higher tiers in the new Maths GCSE.

Presumably this early in the year they are still finding out what he's capable of?

The next test is October, however they are covering different topics than the groups who are presumably doing Higher. The bottom four sets all do Foundation in that case, it is just not called Foundation...

I would like him to leap frog over the bottom four sets and be put into the bottom "middle set" just to see whether it kickstarted his mathematical brain (which I can assure you, does exist, somewhere)

School is very fixated on assessments and targets, and pathways. |Wish I had known that so much would rest on the exam he took in June when he started at the school; he seems to be pigeon holed by it at a very crucial junction.

However, it is not the end of the world, I will just have put a lot of effort in at home between now and mid Oct assessment, but it is frustrating...

I think before you do anything, you should talk to the school and find out what he has to do to move up.

But if he's missed a lot of school, then it might be a bit of a stretch to cover all the work in one and a half school years. Particularly as he's probably having to do the same in all his other subjects too.

Did is in year 10.

The new maths GCSE is hard. Her maths teacher was very concerned that there wasn't enough time to cover everything (& textbooks wernt avsilable.

They started covering stuff in year 9.

Yes, ds's teacher made sure they'd covered all the old GCSE A* material by the end of year 10 so year 11 could be about extra topics from the new GCSE plus consolidation of previous stuff.

I think it's extremely unlikely that ds's year will have covered the level 9 material in time. My understanding is that they will shortly make a depiction whether to try or not. I think they probably won't- and I am pleased.

Technically there aren't any grade 9 topics, they could ask a bloody hard question on any topic at the end of the paper.

OP it's really hard to say what tier your DS should be entered for, maths departments across the country are currently struggling with that decision. However, as a rough guide if he was a level 5 in KS2 SATs then he is probably higher, and if he was a 3, foundation. The 4s are going to be a gamble, That's obviously assuming that they progress at the expected rate.

If he has been tutored on and off then his ability might be higher than his actual knowledge and he might struggle with higher work if he hasn't mastered the topics underpinning it. Maths very much builds on previous work. Instead of waiting till October I would definitely call the maths teacher now to discuss what he needs to do to fill in the gaps and move up. mathswebsite.com is an excellent resource for this.

Talked to Maths teacher, who has been extremely helpful, but did not have the back story for some reason...and didn't realise ds had been out of school. They have moved him up two sets and sent me lots of extra helpful tests to try on him!

Thank you everyone, I feel calmer now, especially in knowledge that new exam is really much harder and needs a lot more intervention. From me.

That sounds promising, OP.