Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

This year's GCSE maths.....

450 replies

BertrandRussell · 22/02/2017 18:48

My ds's maths teacher has just told me that the 7000 odd schools that did the new maths GCSE as mocks recently achieved a modal score of 11% for paper 1. 11% ? Surely not!!!!!! Shock

OP posts:
Thread gallery
12
noblegiraffe · 26/02/2017 18:24

I'm teaching Foundation this year so I'm more aware of the clusterfuck at that end than the mess that is higher.

Confidence is a real factor in how many students take A-level maths (or physics, another one which struggles to recruit girls). Girls are also more likely than boys to have high grades in other subjects and have more options if they don't want to take maths.

Resilience is going to be an issue on both Foundation and Higher. They median mark was the same for both papers which means that half the kids that sat the November mock sat a set of papers were they got less than a third of the marks. Why would the bottom end even bother showing up?

Shaistaali · 26/02/2017 21:40

Are any of your children's school doing mocks in maths & English again in the second week of March? Cause then the teachers will know for sure about the grade boundries in maths....

Shaistaali · 26/02/2017 21:42

What's the best way to revise maths?

noblegiraffe · 26/02/2017 21:43

No! No they really won't!!

Teachers will not know anything for sure about grade boundaries in maths until the day before results day August 2017.

noblegiraffe · 26/02/2017 21:44

For how best to revise maths see the first post in this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2822454-Study-tips-and-websites-for-those-with-children-in-Y11

TheFallenMadonna · 26/02/2017 21:45

I was just about to yell the same as noble. I might yell it at my line manager tomorrow too...

Pestilentialone · 26/02/2017 21:57

I gave the edexcel higher mock to DD22, wanted her to do it and help me mark as I have already done over 100 this week. She has A* IGCSE and a B at A level and a science based degree. She was shocked by the difficulty of the paper.
Must confess when I did paper 2H I resorted to logs Blush

KittyVonCatsington · 26/02/2017 22:01

This is happening in Computer Science too. I tested my Year 10s with a specimen paper and they averaged a couple of 3s and the rest 4s and 5s. I gave them a re-test with last year's paper (the old style) and they all got 7s or 8s roughly. I say roughly as the grade boundaries haven't been set but used similar ones to before.

As has been said, the styles of qestions have changed. Whereas it used to be "Define the functions of an Operating System" or "Convert the denary number 12 into hexadecimal", now it is "Bob wants to buy a new computer and make sure that he can use running programs safely and efficiently. What would he need to have, in order to do this?" and "A compressed file using RLE is being used by Geoff but he wants to know what colour runs he can use. Convert the signed number 12 to hexadecimal".

All questions have the same answers but my students are just struggling to interpret them. We are now having as many Exam Technique lessons as we are theory lessons and it is starting to bore them Sad

noblegiraffe · 26/02/2017 22:40

Remember when it was only teachers that hated Gove and everyone said that we were just whinging about all his changes because he was coming in and making us actually teach properly?

This is the sort of stuff we were talking about!

ErrolTheDragon · 26/02/2017 23:00

Kitty - oh god, those wordy questions must be particularly awful for some of the kids who might be great at CS or maths but bad with words. Sad I know people who^^ think brilliantly in maths and code but struggle with english.

Fourmantent · 27/02/2017 07:49

DS2 Yr6 is coming home with similar very wordy SATs homework. When he gets to Yr 11 he will have had 5 years to get used to them, unlike the current Yr 11s.

I work in secondary school with weaker students and students with ASD and they cannot access the questions. They do not understand what they are being asked to do.

Original poster
BertrandRussell · 27/02/2017 08:36

I hesitate to mention grammar schools, but this is yet another change that will disproportionalty affect school's with a high %age of lower ability children. Coupled with the unfairness inherent in the Progress 8 scores it's going to be really hard for a school like ours to look good on the league tables..........

OP posts:
TheSecondOfHerName · 27/02/2017 08:48

All questions have the same answers but my students are just struggling to interpret them

DH and I refer to them as "Where would you put the power station?" questions.
We were in the second year group to do GCSEs and the new papers were full of these 'scenarios'. My Chemistry GCSE asked which reactions would occur in the atmosphere on Mars! (at least the breakdown of gases was provided)

DS2 (Y10) is very able but also has ASD. He knows and understands the material that has been covered so far, but struggles with the wordy questions, especially in Computer Science, Geography and Biology. Also, his answers are usually correct but don't always include the exact words and phrases the mark scheme requires.

Sorry to derail from Maths.

happy2bhomely · 27/02/2017 09:02

My son took the edexcel higher paper. He got 36% overall which gave him a level 4.

He has a target of a 7.

He needs a 6 to do anything other than business or sociology at his 6th form.

His mock results were:
A RE
B Biology
B Chemistry
B Physics
B Business
5 English Language
C History
4 Maths
D French

He has spent 5 years being told he is underperforming and working below target in every subject all because of his stupidly inflated SATS results from primary and his CAT score.

He is doing 3 hours of revision every night. He did 2 hours a night from September to Christmas. He can't do anymore.

I am really worried. His confidence is wavering and I don't know how to help him. He keeps saying that unless he gets A's it was all a waste of time.

jellyhead · 27/02/2017 09:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Shaistaali · 27/02/2017 09:32

My ds school is resitting their maths on March. Happytobhomely don't worry we all are on the same boat cause my ds target grade for english and maths are 7 but mocks he got -4 for maths and 5 for english literature he's not took language and he needs a 6 for both to get into a levels what he wants to study. As parents we cannot do more then we are my son does 1 subject a day after school like a pass paper for 2 hours and that's it they need their rest aswell, Saturday he will study 2 subject and Sunday 1 cause he has
His free time. I'm gonna tell my son to make a proper revision timetable before easter holidays that's wen get gets his exam timetable cause he is trying his best don't want to push him too hard that he ends up having a nervous break down. Good luck to all the students and parents this year cause the government had to start at some point with the new grade boundaries system...

ErrolTheDragon · 27/02/2017 09:37

Surely if so many are struggling, some combination of low grade boundaries and/or 6th forms dropping entry grade requirements must happen?

noblegiraffe · 27/02/2017 09:45

happy if you look upthread you'll see another poster says someone in their DC's class got 26% and was given a level 6, which just goes to show how little is known about grade boundaries.
It does look like your DS's teacher is using boundaries similar to those on the video upthread which I think are way too high, so TBH your DS should be told he did better than a 4.

Shaistaali · 27/02/2017 09:54

Noblegiraffe u such a good help to all us parents thank you....

Freddorika · 27/02/2017 09:55

happy2bhomely those results look absolutely fine to me. A bit of extra work in maths and french maybe.

my dd also did loads of work. Just check what he's actually doing as my dd was doing loads of unnecessary filler and playing on her phone

If he has the specifications for each subject he just needs to make sure everything on it is solid.

happy2bhomely · 27/02/2017 13:46

Thanks. I know exactly what he is doing revision wise because he works at the kitchen table and I hang around making hot drinks and snacks and marking past papers and printing things for him. I've read all his set texts so we can discuss them and I have half a clue!

He has his exam timetable already and we printed the specifications at the beginning of year 10, so he knows exactly what he needs to revise. He works really, really hard. He has a great attitude and I never have to nag him. He is motivated and really deserves to succeed. I will be gutted for him if his results don't reflect his effort. Of course, I have told him that there are no results that we can't work around and that ultimately it won't be the end of the world.

He doesn't know what he wants to do yet, but he is keen to go to university. I had him when I was 17, in 6th form. I dropped out and never went back. If he goes, he will be the first person in either of our families to go to university. He knows that some people have always had low expectations of him, considering his start in life and is putting a lot of pressure on himself to do well. I know there is a bit of him doing it for me too.

He is also taking English Lit and computer science, but he didn't have mocks in those.

He would be over the moon to be told that his maths mark might not be as bad as it appears.

He has pretty much accepted that a C is as good as it's going to get in french, and we're ok with that.

Noblegiraffe I often lurk on threads and read your advice. Thanks.

Original poster
BertrandRussell · 27/02/2017 15:41

Happy- 3 hours a day is a lot and it's still a while to the exams. What does he do for fun?

OP posts:
Littledrummergirl · 27/02/2017 15:46

Ds2 is yr10 so I am looking ahead to next year. He is dyslexic and his predictions run from a 7 in a couple of subjects down to a 3/4 for English. We are working on revision skills and exam techniques at home to try to get him over the boundary but a 5! [Cries] [rocks in corner]
His maths teacher has said he could get anything from a 7 down to 3 depending on how he copes with wordy questions.

I'm just trying to keep him positive and believing in himself.

happy2bhomely · 27/02/2017 21:26

BertrandRussell 3 hours is a lot, But it flies by. He gets in at 3:45, gets a snack and a shower then works until 7 when I do dinner. He's worked out a revision timetable and put it into 'blocks' and to fit it in before the exams, it requires 3 hours with 3, 10-minute breaks. He only does 2 hours on a Thursday because he does an extra hour of physics after school (compulsory, so that triple science didn't take another of his options.)

For fun, he plays for a local football team, so that's Sunday mornings and Thursday evenings. He plays football with friends at a sports centre most Saturdays and goes to the cinema and out for food at least a couple of times a month. He doesn't have a curfew, so he could be out much more if he wanted.

He has a great group of friends and he spends a lot of time with them at the weekend, but during the week he is on his PlayStation after dinner until bedtime. Then he reads for a bit.

I think it's ok. He eats and sleeps well and is happy in himself, so I'm not worried about how much he is doing.

pointythings · 27/02/2017 21:43

DD1 sat her first lot of maths mocks in November and got 184/240 across all three papers. She found all three papers hard and one very hard, but she was one of the top 5 in her year, all 6 very able in maths. The rest of the year has really struggled. These GCSEs are a massive step up from what they used to be.

We're in round 2 of mocks now, DD1 has done one maths paper so far and said it was a bit less hard than the November one, so we shal see...

It's horribly worrying for this cohort.

Swipe left for the next trending thread