Maths GCSE Mock - Foundation Paper Fail

[TheWalkingDude]

Hello all,

I'm looking for some advice from parents and teachers regarding the new maths foundation paper.

DD is in year 11 and sat her maths mock just after half term. She sat 3 papers and received her result today, which was 1 . She was predicted to get a 5 in the exams next year.

She has come home and told me that nearly everyone failed the maths mock, with the majority scoring a 1 or 2. The highest grade received was a 3. There was even a big discussion at the school assembly today regarding the low scores.

It would appear to be an even bigger issue with the higher paper as a letter has come home explaining that it has now become apparent to the school that the content of the higher paper had "changed dramatically" and that a number of pupils will be better suited to the foundation paper. The letter further adds that the Government advice is that the higher paper is aimed only at those intending to pursue a career in maths or the sciences.

The whole of year 11 will have to resist the mock in Jaunuary.

Now, I am quite concerned about this. Although DD is sitting the foundation paper, scoring 1 is very worrying. DD should be getting the papers back so we can take a look and see what has gone wrong.

Anyone out there know anything about the new maths papers? Does this sound like the school are failing to teach the correct subject matter?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[TheWalkingDude]

Doh - should have made clear that A - C GSCE score of 51% includes* Maths and English.

[noblegiraffe]

As such, around two thirds of the year group should get a Grade 4 or above in the new GCSE

That's assuming that nationally they use the 61% figure to set the 4 grade boundary. This includes a huge number of Y12 GCSE resit students who mostly failed. With just y11 students, the grade 4 boundary could be set so 70ish % of students achieve 4+.

I don't think the DfE have yet said which figure they are going to use, which is so bloody frustrating. We also don't know how the 4s are going to be distributed between higher and foundation papers. Given that we also don't have any idea of grade boundaries and the higher paper is ridiculously hard, tiering decisions are a nightmare. Twitter shows that teachers across the country are having the same issues with deciding where to place kids. It's going to be a total gamble.

[noblegiraffe]

Ok, I've seen some estimated grade boundaries for the Edexcel mock papers and they reckon 30-35 marks out of 240 will get you a 1 on the foundation paper and a 4 on the higher paper.

So if your DD got a 1, does she think she got somewhere between about 15 and 30% on the foundation?

[Lottie4]

It would be well worth having a chat with DC's maths teacher. As a matter of course my DD's teacher gets them to correct mistakes made on homework and test papers on top of their homework. If they're struggling they make a note in their workbook and get a comment back which will hopefully help and they know they can speak to her if they can't understand.

Do talk to the tutor about what's best for your DC? Have the school previously given any predicted grades? Is the 1 a lot lower than predicted grade? Doing mocks gets them focussed, some will do well and strive to repeat this, others may not do so well but can use the time they have left to get help/support. Any revision/extra work/chats your DC can have with teacher are all going to help, and then they can work out what's best for your DD. I'm sure the school have given advice on revision resources, online references, past papers on school website, suggested revision books. If DD hasn't already, suggest she have a look at them and work out which would suit her better.

[noblegiraffe]

Here's a photo I took from Twitter - a poll about where schools are setting the 5 grade boundary for the higher paper mocks. Only a few responses so far but you can already see that there are huge variations across schools, from 20 to 60 out of 80 (I hope that the higher end were thinking of % and not raw score, or perhaps Foundation rather than Higher), and the problem is that while I think the higher ones are very unlikely, we don't know which of the lower ones are going to be closer to the truth and we won't know until the students sit the exams and the grade boundaries are calculated and released in August.

[noblegiraffe]

No one really knows, tiggy. How the grade 5s will be awarded across tiers will presumably depend on the profile of students who are entered for each tier. Exam boards (and then Ofqual) look at KS2 data when grade boundaries are set, to ensure that students are achieving roughly what they should achieve.

Here's a letter a high-profile maths blogger just sent to Ofqual so you can see the state of play at the moment:

justmaths.co.uk/2016/11/18/a-letter-to-ofqual/

You're absolutely right that they can't fail them all, but so much is going to depend on who actually enters for these GCSEs and for which tier. If a bunch of top private schools opt for IGCSE then the 9 will be more attainable for a state school student than if they enter for GCSE.

[IEatCannibals]

I'm going through foundation paper Vs higher paper angst at the minute. Dd is predicted a 4 but I think got a 5 on a paper last week. But she says now that her teacher is thinking about putting her in for the higher paper. I think she will be better sticking with foundation.

Will a 4 be considered a fail? Ive previously been told it equates to a low C?

[RalphSteadmansEye]

Ds's school is a non-selective independent and they're sticking with iGCSE for maths and taking the hit in the league tables.

What should also surely come into play in decisions about higher vs foundation tier for "borderline" candidates is: which students are likely to get some hard questions right but don't always get easy stuff right (make basic mistakes) or can they do the basic stuff very well all the time but don't understand any higher level topics? That was the way it was explained to me by maths colleagues - decision on which tier was based on each student's strengths (within that group of middle ability students).

[IEatCannibals]

Thanks. It's parents evening next week so will discuss it with the teacher more but my gut feeling is to stick to foundation. Dd has no inclination to do any sorts of maths or science at a level so she just needs a pass. Something equivalent to a C would be fine. Which one minute seems to be a 4 and the next a 5.

[Suppermummy02]

I am confused why the school is 'panicking' now. This change was well trailed a few years ago. The schools I know made a lot of changes and increased Maths provision etc a year ago. We knew they were getting harder.

Maybe some really stuck their heads in the sand and are know covering their backs.

[TeenAndTween]

IEat A 4 is equivalent to a low C, and is good enough this year to not have to retake alongside A levels (or whatever).

However a 'good pass' (formerly a C) is going to be considered a 5 (a high C / low B).

This means that if a DC gets a 4 this year and doesn't retake, they may be disadvantaged in later years for jobs, if employers pick up on 5 as being a good pass.

In summary, she needs to do whatever makes getting a 5 more likely.

[pointythings]

DD1 (higher, good at maths) found her mocks very very hard except for one paper which was on stuff that she has always understood well - she says she got 68/80 marks but has no idea what that means, only that it puts her second best in her year. Lots of people in her top set got really, really low marks, everyone is very worried.

She's already revising for January mocks, this is sucking the joy out of her life...

[Fourmantent]

I'm a secondary TA so reading with interest. DS was borderline C/D last year. He took the higher paper and the strategy was to bag the easy questions and triple check his answers and then go for just a few of the easier B grade questions. The strategy worked and he got his C. I really feel for the Year 11s this year. I work in lower sets and am concerned about the morale when the students get their mock results back. It must be very very stressful for the maths teachers.

[LooseAtTheSeams]

This year and next year grade 4 will be a pass, in the sense that students who get it won't have to resit, but schools will be judged on how many get grades 5-9 in performance tables. I have also noticed that, for example, Esher College and Graveney sixth form, both very popular, are setting 4 as the minimum entrance level, although of course each subject then sets whichever level they require to do the A level.

[monsterbookofty]

I am doing the math 9-1 gcse at college atm. I am finding the teaching is worded a lot differently in lessons compared to the mock tests which threw a lot of us in class when we did the progress teat.

[noblegiraffe]

The main difference between the higher paper this year compared to previous years was that previously half the paper was C/D grade questions. A borderline C candidate was in with a chance of answering questions all the way up to the staples, then they might have been taught selected topics beyond that (cumulative frequency, vectors, subbing into the quadratic formula) to bag some easier marks from the harder questions.

This year, less than a third of the questions are "4-5 grade", and this includes old B grade topics like trigonometry (questions technically shouldn't be graded, but for example the on the non calculator higher mock, Q1-7 out of about 24 were also on the foundation paper). We could be looking at students aiming for a 4 to be realistically expecting to answer the first double page of questions and then pick up a handful of marks over the next few questions, then nothing on the other two thirds. It used to be thought that it was better for C grade students to sit higher. Bearing what I've just said in mind, that's an awful lot of students who really now should switch to Foundation.

[noblegiraffe]

This change was well trailed a few years ago.

To be fair, Ofqual only concluded their investigation which ended up with the sample assessment materials for all exam board being burned and replaced with easier ones about a year and a half ago, with revised sample exam papers coming out around July 2015.

There is a major issue with how rushed through these changes have been, a recent Twitter poll had over half of teachers responding that the 4 would be used to measure schools over the next two years before switching to a 5, which is wrong. I think another issue with maths is that we are seeing the effects of a chronic shortage of maths teachers, and lack of experience of those in leadership roles. My class are quite lucky that they were being taught by me - I saw the revised SAMs and instantly switched them to Foundation. In a different department with a less experienced teacher they could well still be floundering with higher.

[TheWalkingDude]

Evening everyone. Thanks for all the comments and information.

DD has not yet been given back her exam papers so we are still in the dark as to where she is struggling. She was surprised to get a 1 as she said that she answered more questions than she did in the Y10 mocks. She did say that she could not answer all questions either because a) she couldn't understand what was being asked, b) she had couldn't remember how to work out the answer and c) she hadn't yet been taught the material, e.g., ratios.

The school have confirmed that the highest grade on foundation is a 5 and said they will send letters out to parents next week to apologise for the misinformation.

Spoke to DD's tutor yesterday who had been in contact with the Deputy Head of another local Seconday school who has also had most of their year 11 fail the mocks. The tutor's take is that there are more of the wordy questions than before which is tripping up her students.

My concern is that DD's 6th form and all of the other local 6th forms are asking for grade 5 Maths as part of the entrance criteria. So we could end up with DD getting her predicted A*/A in the subjects that she wants to take at A level (she already has an A in Latin which she sat this year), but unable to be offered a place at any local 6th form if she does not get a grade 5. I have no idea if there would be any flexibility for admittance on this score.

My plan tomorrow is to get DD to print off the Edexcel specification and highlight everything that has been covered in lessons so far. I have also noticed that there is a sample paper too, so we will print this off and DD will work through it. DD has also said that maths lessons at school for the next few weeks are going to focus primarily on revision so they are ready for January. There are also rumoured to be more mocks in March.

[Moonshine86]

There are so many past papers she could have a go at online and answers to allow marking (will show you where marks can be awarded etc...)
Many marks are lost for not showing the working out even if the answer is correct x

[IEatCannibals]

Oh the sixth form thing is shit. Here the sixth forms will accept with a grade 4, obviously only as long as not wanting to do a level maths.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

that's the thing moonshine - past papers bear little resemblance to the specimen papers for the new exam.

[TheWalkingDude]

obviously only as long as not wanting to do a level maths.

She does intend to do A level Psychology and is aware that statistics will feature. When she spoke to her prospective teacher at 6th form Open Evening, teacher confirmed that only requirement for course was the grade 5 in Maths, which is the entry requirement anyway.

Other A levels will be Sociology, English Literature & Latin.