Grade 4 maths student - which tier of entry

[noblegiraffe]

Do you think it's reasonable to enter a student for the higher tier paper if they are aiming for a 4?

On the one hand, you only needed 17% to get a 4 on higher, leading to the perception (true or otherwise) that it's easier to achieve a 4 on higher.

BUT on the other hand, this means entering a student for a paper where the cumulative knowledge of 11 years of study is demonstrated in merely 41 marks out of 240 over 4.5 hours of exams.

Mathematically, it would be much better for them to sit Foundation where they have a much wider range of questions they can access and they will be expected to get over half of them right. (51% for a 4).

Better mathematical experience or possibly greater chance of passing?

The chief examiner for Edexcel says more students should be entered for Foundation looking at this summer's entries. Teachers on twitter are suggesting they will be entering more for Higher looking at the grade boundaries.

This has been a perennial issue wirh borderline students in Maths. I have always erred on the side of F entry, and disagreed with other teachers over it. I think there will be lots of students sitting two mock papers this year.

My DS got a 4 in his GCSE this year and we are thrilled. We weighed up the pros and cons and yes it is a gamble as they have to do very well in the paper to just get a pass however we thought the likelihood of doing badly on the higher paper was greater. Also the smaller syllabus gave him more time to revise post Easter as they had covered the curriculum.

Is there any way they could actually take both and just be awarded the higher of the 2 grades they achieved? (Only those borderline candidates). Just wondering whether that woukd benefit them or adversely affect them.

DD's school switched her C/D maths set from foundation to higher at the very last minute. It was a very small class with kids who needed additional support. New head of maths in January made the decision. There was no time to cover the additional work which to be honest were beyond her capabilities anyway. Until then the teacher had been concentrating on getting the basics right and doing it well.
DD took one look at the exam paper and went to pieces. They took a gamble and it didn't work - all the kids got u. I'm furious.

Allthebest, exam boards don't allow that.

My DD's school switched her to foundation at the last moment as they thought she would freeze up faced with the higher paper, she is under confident when it comes to maths. I'm pleased they did as she did manage a 4. I'd err on the side of caution particularly if a pass is all that is required.

My child, clearly grade 4 material was entered for higher and duly got a 4. I would have preferred them to have sat foundation and not found the majority of the paper totally inaccessible, but hey ho, won't need to resit, so who knows.

I don't see the point of doing the higher unless you think your dc has a fair chance of achieving a 6.

Is it easier to get 17% on potentially a really difficult exam or 51% on an averagely difficult exam? Million dollar question.

Dd just sat the foundation paper....she was a 5/6 student but has no intention of taking ,maths any further. As it was the first year after talking to her teacher we decided on foundation as nobody had much of a clue. She probably could have got a six but really only needed a five and we didn't want to take the gamble. She got a five. I think if she had been more of a grade four student I would definitely have put her in for the foundation.

I think it would be wrong to give a child, who has only ever seen questions that they should be able to do, a paper they can do less than a fifth of.

But if the school have prepared them, and the exam paper is properly graduated, then saying only expect to be able to do q1-8, but look at 9-30 in case there is something you fancy would probably be OK. It is effectively what I did for DD2 for her maths SATs in y6.

However personally from what I have read, I think there is a lot to be said for either reintroducing an intermediate tier, or extending foundation up to grade 6 so a bigger overlap between the two papers so all the second guessing isn't needed?

Ah, only just realised it's you, noble.
That's the thing isn't it? The gamble of the fact that the score needed is much less, versus how well a student holds their nerve in the face of a barrage of questions they can't answer....
I'm hoping that now we actually have concrete grade boundaries to work with (until they change next year of course), that we can use both tiers to see how well individual students score on each, and enter them to what we hope is their best advantage.
It really is a case of damned if you do, and damned if you don't ATM I suspect.

My DD1 had a tendency to make silly mistakes on simple stuff like reading off graphs or say 8x8=16. I got her quite good in the end by drilling etc but I can see how someone like her might achieve better on a harder paper but with effectively loads more time per question.

That's the thing, Teen. Speaking to HoD Maths at both my last two schools, they always said (old spec, ofc) that it depended on an individual's strengths and weaknesses. Pretty good grasp of algebra / geometry but make daft basic numeracy mistakes? Higher tier. Don't understand algebra at all but completely solid on number work? Foundation. Made sense to me.

all the kids got u.

Wow, notangelina that's appalling, and should have been anticipated - if they were scoring low enough to get a U then it would have been obvious - the grade boundaries were so low that it's not that they misjudged where they would be.

I do wonder sometimes how some people get promoted.

effectively loads more time per question.

That's one way of looking at it! It's an awfully long time to be sat in the exam hall for 41 marks though.

51% for a pass on Foundation still feels pretty low, and 66% for a 5. That paper isn't really serving them well either, even if it was intermediate it would be too hard, you'd want the top grade to be at least 75% I reckon for the paper to be pegged right.

So about the same as the old F paper then...

It was about 55% for a C on old OCR foundation which was always a bit odd.

The whole reform has been a shambles, they had a real chance to make maths assessment more meaningful and Gove totally blew it. Teachers never wanted the intermediate paper to go in the first place and this has just made the situation worse. Anyone aiming for a 6 or under is poorly served.

51% for a pass on Foundation still feels pretty low, and 66% for a 5.
That's what I was thinking.

I was also slightly surprised at how 'low' the boundary was for an 8/9 on the higher paper. (Not as in too easy to get, but as in the top questions must have been very very hard.) Would be interesting to see a graph showing scores v number of candidates. Would love to see how the scores spread for 8s and 9s.

I'm just relieved DD1 did GCSEs under the old system and DD2 is only just going into y8 rather than y11!

Thanks noble. I wasn't expecting A or anything near but a U was shocking. She left primary on level 3 and I knew it was going to be a tough exam for her. I really don't understand why the school did this. I really want to 'shout' at someone but I don't know who. She is the sweetest, loveliest soul anyone could ever meet and my heart breaks for her. We never ever draw comparisons but she has an elder sister who never got less than a A* for anything and I think this is playing on her mind. She is so low right now and I have told her we are proud that she has done so well (which she has apart from maths) but she just sees the maths result. you

Result won't affect her college place next year but she will have to resit and get a 4 before she can move onto level 3 and complete the course in the 2nd year. I doubt very much she will pass the resit

I don't know what more can be done. Outstanding primary school, teaching assistants, private tutors, private school, good nice happy parents, happy family, no bad stuff. She just can't get her head round maths.

they had a real chance to make Maths assessment more meaningful

Totally agree. How can the results possibly show anyone's true ability anyway when the exams are not fit for purpose.

The FE learners I pick up who need Level 2 (Functional Maths) very often got a D on the Higher paper. I expect to see many with 3s - I've already met a couple.
I understand the difficulty of deciding on tier of entry in school, but almost all of my learners would have benefited from more focus on the basics, and doing the Foundation paper. The best word to describe them is confused, but they can be moved towards competence by revisiting the basics.
YY to bringing back the Intermediate tier.

It is a tricky question and of course sitting a higher paper a student would run the risk of there not being enough on the paper that they can answer. They will not cover the whole curriculum on the one paper, and if you haven't studied the bits that do come up....

Really hard decision.

My boy is about to start serious maths and I'm worried. I've thought of getting a tutor but I'm not sure if that is the answer for him. What is there online for teaching maths? He'd react far better to something that involves his PC or phone than a real person who I think he'd feel was just telling him what to do. Any ideas?

Notangelinajolie.

You could be us!! Despite all the support we could offer (including an ex Maths teacher as her father!), DD has just never been able to get her head round Maths and really struggled with the new syllabus. She was in a small group with lots of support. The Head of Maths decided in Feb that the group should take the higher paper. DP fought all the way, insisting on DD taking the foundation paper. He always maintained that she just wouldn't be able to tackle the higher paper and wouldn't pass, however low the pass boundary was. The Head of Maths refused to budge, so we told the school we would be withdrawing her from Maths GCSE and entering her privately for the foundation paper. At the last minute the school relented. Out of the 16 in her class, 12 got 2's & 3's. The 2 students that sat the foundation got 4's. It was so sad seeing these students on results day, in a line for 'retake maths'. The majority of these students did very well in their other GCSE's. Interestingly, DP got hold of the higher paper from his old Head of Dept. He said DD would not have scored more than 5 - 10%.

noblegiraffe are you around? Or anyone else who knows about Maths?

I iknow this is an old thread but I have posted background information in previous posts in this thread so I thought I'd start here before starting another thread.

As previously stated DD got a U in Higher Tier AQA Maths. Her small target group was switched to Higher at the last minute - a gamble by the school which didn't pay off. She and her class had only been taught Lower tier Maths and knew none of the Higher content.

I have just received an email from school as follows.

Dear Mrs Jolie,
I am writing to you following a meeting within the Maths department to ask you if you have considered getting Miss Jolie's maths paper reviewed. She was awarded a U and she is currently 5 marks off receiving a level 3. If this is something you would be interested in please let me know - there is a fee of £36.50 which will be waived if the review is successful.
Regards
Exam Officer

I don't know what to do. Do I pay £36.50 on the chance DD's paper was marked wrong? Surely Maths is one of those exams where there is only a right or a wrong answer and not subjective like English or Art? What chance is there of them finding these 5 extra marks when the boundaries were so low in the first place. I personally think it is very unlikely.

DH says we should tell the school to bugger off and thinks they only want a remark because they are terrified of what Ofsted is going say about all those U's. And that we should forget the past and move on and let College teach her the Maths skills she will need for her resit.

Tissunnyupnorth

Ha! we are up north too - probably the same school! Well done to your DD delighted she had a happy ending.

I have finally come to the conclusion that there are some kids who no matter how much time, tutoring, money, effort goes into teaching them they just can't quite get there.

Blimey your school has some brass neck! They want the paper remarked because going from a U to a 3 is a massive jump in terms of points (much more than your usual going up a grade), plus maths is double weighted in progress 8, so would go from 0 points to 6. But they want you to pay for it, when it was their terrible decision that resulted in the U in the first place.

I would say that it's very unlikely that they would find 5 extra marks - usually marks only change by 1 or 2, however there are 3 papers so it's possible.

I would send back 'Given that we have literally nothing to lose, you have my permission to send the papers back for a remark. However given that it was the school's poor decision about tier of entry which resulted in the U, I would expect the school to pay the fee if the grade doesn't change, especially as you will benefit from the double-weighted boost to progress 8 if it does.'

And see what they say