gcse further maths and new maths gcse

[fuckingwall]

Can any secondary maths teachers tell me whether gcse further maths would be seen as a higher qualification than a grade 9 in the new maths gcse?

No, because we don't know how good you will have to be to get a grade 9, and won't until after the exams are sat (a lot will depend on if heavily selective private schools sit the new GCSE or continue with iGCSE).

It would be very interesting to see whether students who get a 9 at GCSE get an A^ at further maths and vice versa.

In terms of level of qualification they are both technically equal.

Do all further/additional maths GCSE/iGCSEs have A*?

For some reason I thought some of the exams still had A as the top grade.

Schools generally only put their best mathematicians into further maths, so it tends to be seen as 'higher' - in inverted commas because, as noble says, they're technically the same but the reputation is different because of the typical ability of the typical pool that does that course in the first place.

That's really interesting thanks.

Noble - how does it matter whether heavily selective schools choose igcse or gcse please? Will grade 9's go to a percentage of candidates regardless of calibre? Thanks

Grade 7 and above will go to approx 20% of candidates to match the % of students getting A or above last year, so if a group of candidates heavily weighted towards the top end were entered for GCSE this year where they weren't last year, the top grades awarded will be affected.

Ofqual have tried to fudge it to say 'roughly the same proportions as last year' meaning there is wiggle room, but they calculate their 'comparable outcomes' based on KS2 SATs results and ignore candidates who didn't sit them. A lot of private schools don't sit SATs.

Aha thank you noble - is that just for this year or for all future years dyou think?

They're introducing national reference tests in maths and English which will be used to determine key grade boundaries from about 2019.
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/549975/An_overview_of_the_National_Reference_Test_final.pdf

God know what they'll do in 2018. Maybe use KS2 data and the results from 2017, or maybe just roll some dice.

They decided to change how the grade 9s were to be awarded a few months ago (near the end of the course!) resulting in about 3000 fewer grade 9s available for maths. They really are making it up as they go along.

Noble - Thank you for posting that, I am really pleased to hear that about national reference tests. DD will sit IGCSE maths in 2018 and I was a little bit concerned about how that would work with the 20% etc because most schools sitting IGCSE are selective which distorts the results. I was starting to wonder why anyone would stay in the IGCSE cohort.