Foundation maths ? Anyone answer some questions?

[angelsgirls]

My dd is going into year 10, she was only this year diagnosed with working memory, auditory processing and dyslexic traits and fit school so so hard.

Was chatting to friends today about gcse and was expressing how worried I am and how dd will get a level 2 if she's lucky and how they will expect her to keep redoing it and friends son (just completed a levels and off to uni) asked why she isn't doing foundation maths and English

Now I have never heard of this, is this something her school will offer and if so how do I go about getting this for her?

If she's going to get a grade 2 then she'll be entered for foundation maths.
GCSE maths can be sat either at Foundation level which covers grades 1-5 or at higher level which covers grades 4-9. Less able students sit the foundation paper, more able sit higher. There is no mention of the paper you sat on your GCSE certificate so if you got a grade 5, no one can tell if it was on foundation or higher, the certificate is exactly the same.

English isn't two tiered, there's no foundation and higher English anymore so your DD will just be entered for English.

Do you mean Foundation or Functional Skills?
Noble can explain more if that's what you actually mean.

Ok so this isn't something I need to ask the school then as she will just automatically do that paper, is that right?

Yes, that's right.

The lower ability kids will automatically be entered for the Foundation paper for GCSE maths, you don't need to check with the school.

If someone fails maths or English at GCSE then they need to retake at college. If they keep failing / fail badly there is something called Level 2 Functional Skills Maths (& English too??). This only has 'every day' maths in it, but still looks quite hard to me for a lower ability. I don't know much more than that.

I don't know whether schools are allowed to enter for Functional Skills papers in y11. @noblegiraffe will know.

If she is capable of getting a grade 2 on the foundation paper then that will be the best option for her in school - once at college she will be expected to resit until she gets a 4 or turns 18 unfortunately. There are different levels of function skills qualifications that they can do as an alternative once in post 16 - entry level which is extreme basics - arithmetic in simple contexts, function skills level one which is below gcse equivalent so she might start there and then move on to level 2 functional skills but the level two isn't particularly easy. She's probably best focusing on doing the best she can at school and choosing a post 16 course that suits her needs, she won't be the only one in her situation and there are usually lots of options that allow her to do the maths qualifications alongside her course.

Sorry auto correct - for function it should read functional

TeenTimesTwo maybe it was the functional one they were telling me about and not foundation!

They said it's more everyday skills, budgeting etc

Is she able to do the fictional exam instead of the gcse in year 11 ?

No idea. I'm hoping noble will come back and answer, though neverbee seems to imply not.

But I like the idea of a fictional exam!

Whoops, as you can see I failed gcse English to

Pretty much every kid in the country sits maths GCSE (there are very few exceptions, especially if they're expected to get a grade). What might happen is that the school also enters the weaker students in for an additional qualification - my school enters them for a level 1 numeracy type certificate, not sure which one.

Functional skills tends to be reserved for sixth form. If a student fails maths or English GCSE with a 3, they will have to resit GCSE. However if they fail with a 2 or below, then they can either resit GCSE, or sit functional maths/english. The level 2 functional qualification is sometimes accepted as a GCSE equivalent and is easier to pass than GCSE as it doesn't have the abstract stuff like algebra.