Confused- what is the difference between higher maths GCSE,Foundation and advanced GCSE?

[IroningMountain]

Just that really.

There is one basic Maths GCSE.

For that GCSE you can take harder exams if you are good at maths. That is called the Higher tier.
Or if not so good at maths you take easier exams called Foundation tier. If you take the Foundation exams you can't get above a new grade 5 (a low B in previous grading).
If you take the higher paper but can't do it instead of getting a low grade you can end up ungraded U.
Either tier you end up with 1 final overall grade and it doesn't say on your certificate which tier of papers you took.

The school should decide/recommend what tier a pupil is entered for. For the top and bottom sets this will be obvious. For some pupils in the middle it may not be decided until the spring of y11.

What is the advanced GCSE paper?

I don't think there is an advanced GCSE.
Advanced is the full name for A Levels which are taken in y13.

There is a further maths GCSE that the very bright top set kids can do. But not all schools do this, and with the harder specs for the standard maths GCSE there may be less demand anyway.

Our school has mentioned an additional advanced maths paper. I guess that must be it. Will it make the standard GCSE less worthy or is it just an addition i.e. nice to have?

There is an Additional Maths gcse equivalent separately.

I'll let @noblegiraffe comment on that she teaches maths, I'm only an interested parent.

I can't see that taking FM makes the standard maths any less worthy.
Doing FM can add interest to the able mathematicians, and act as a bridge to A levels. Will also look good for anyone wanting to do maths at university, or apply to the top universities in general.

What year is your DC?

What is it?

Is there LIZS? Learn something new every day.
What is the difference between that and Further Maths?

Not sure but my DD has just taken maths gcse. Prior to this year her school did maths gcse and further maths (not sure if correct term) if you were really good at maths. This year they all just did the new edexcel gcse. The schools opinion was as the new gcse is more vigorous there was no need for the extra exam.
She went to a super selective grammar. Not sure what other schools do.

Vigorous : rigorous. Autocorrect!

According to dd they crossover but the format is different Add Maths focusses on algebra, sketching graphs, completing the square, integration (1 paper with calculator), FM includes circle theorem, matrices(2 papers)

Additional maths also counts as a A/S level rather than GCSE-results come out with A-levels (although dd1 didn't get the results until she got the rest of them.)
The boundary for A also went up quite a bit this year, dd1 read that a lot fewer did it because of the new spec in GCSE, but the people who dropped out were (naturally) the bottom end. So the same percentage got A/B/C etc, but as the bottom end had dropped off it meant the actual difficulty went up.

Additional Maths (Advanced) Free Standing Maths Qualification counts for UCAS points - about as many as a single AS module as it's a level 3 qualification.

Further Maths (offered by AQA) is a level 2 certificate so equivalent to a GCSE but has it's own grading system: A^, A*, A, B, C, U.

I don't know much about the FSMQ, my school does Further Maths. In terms of difficulty, about half our top set got 9s, but less than a third of those who got a 9 got an A^, so it's something for the really elite mathematicians to go for.

I really like the Further Maths qualification, the exam paper is more fun than GCSE. However many schools will be ditching it to focus on the new GCSE which is much harder and also ditching it because it doesn't count as an Ebacc subject for Progress 8

Oh and I've just looked it up, the FSMQ won't count for progress 8 at all, even in the open slot, unless the student doesn't take GCSE maths.

Bah, further investigation says that Further Maths doesn't count any more either. But GCSE Statistics, which is a horrible qualification, does count. Makes no sense, especially when triple sciences all count separately.

The real Science nonsense was Further Additional Science not counting in the EBacc bucket. Sometimes I feel there is no quote enough rigour on the selection of subjects...

(Interesting: integration, circle theorem, completing the square and all the above were on iGCSE which Ds sat this year, but which certain mnetters insist is an easier qualification than even the old spec gcse...)

Many thanks for the info Noble & Witch. There seemed to be zilch elsewhere, I guess because it's all new. Believe me I looked.

So not having the advanced isn't seen as a disadvantage then if you're say going into sciences further down the line. It's more for the elite mathematicians going into maths? Would a very strong mark in the regular maths GCSE be enough for sciences?

As an aside how soon do you know how capable a child will be as regards maths GCSE? Can things change during secondary or is it pretty much obvious when they start?

I'm also interested to understand the differences. Our school offers FSMQ Additional Maths to about a quarter of Year 11s, to do alongside GCSE Maths.

I wonder why they choose Additional Maths and not Further Maths? Any ideas?

Ironing
I can only speak from dd1's experience: Bog standard comprehensive.

Her year's been messed about with the new spec for maths. The school also did an experiment of splitting the boys and girls for maths which was pretty universally a disaster in the top sets. They'd done it before with success in the middle sets, but they tried it across the board for dd1's year. It was effectively a year lost as far as maths went for dd1. No one seemed to think it worked and they haven't repeated it.

What the school used to do was top set would do maths GCSE a year early, then do additional maths.

In her year they decided it was no point getting the earlier GCSE, so the top set did statistics GCSE in year 10 and were going to only do the new GCSE (why didn't they give it a new name!) in year 11.

However some of the pupils (and I suspect dd1 was one of them) told the teacher they really wanted to have a go at additional maths. So he set up an afterschool session. It was meant to be once a week, but was less often than once a fortnight. About 1/2 of the top set went and also about 1/4 of the second set.

They got a good smattering of As, and then right down to Us. Equally well they got (I think) 20/30 9s in maths from the top set and about 5-6 9s from the second set.

I don't think anyone got an A in additional who didn't get a 9 in GCSE, and I don't think any of the second set got an A in additional, although there was definitely at least one C, because one of dd1's friends got that.

For dd1's year, the right at the top mathematicians has been pretty consistent since year 7. There was dd1 and about 5 boys who would score consistently above the rest.

However a number of the 9s at the GCSE are students who have risen from where they started. Whether that's because they were badly taught before, or suddenly something clicked, or they worked really hard at it I don't know.

Dm was a maths tutor and sometimes she had someone who wasn't doing particularly well and she found there was something they'd just got a mental block about. When she got them through that they soared. There was one lad who'd been struggling in set 8/9 for years. She did 6 months of tutoring with him and when they did the end of year exams he rose into 3/9-and was at the top of that.

Additional is an unusual exam. I'm not sure how many take it, but I think it's in the small 1000s rather than more. I'm sure Noble will know!
I did it in 1992, and it was referred to as an O-level (called A/O) rather than a GCSE. It's now treated as an A/S level. Most people don't seem to have come across it, so I wouldn't worry about your ds not doing it.

The children doing additional were mostly those who want to continue with maths, especially those who are keen on further maths. Plus some who wanted to do science A-level but didn't want to do maths in the hope that will carry the maths content forward.

I think that dd1 reckoned that the new maths GCSE covered about 60% of the additional maths syllabus, so she might as well do it. However if she'd been struggling with the new Maths I would have been reluctant for her to do it as it would take away the focus. (although she tells me she only really did 2 days of work for it, between the main GCSEs and that, which was her last exam)

That makes sense, Witchend. At our school Additional Maths is offered to those wanting to do Maths for Alevel. Supposedly it makes the transition to 6th form easier. But why do they choose Additional Maths and not Further Maths?

I may be wrong but I believe there is also a Core Maths qualification, which can be taken in year 13 as an add-on to science or social science subjects?

Circle theorems are definitely in the new higher maths GCSE. Not sure about the other things though.

Circle theorems were always on the GCSE syllabus, as was completing the square and graph sketching, those aren't special to IGCSE. Calculus is on IGCSE but not GCSE although the new GCSE has pre-calculus.

Further maths GCSE is a relatively recent qualification. It was introduced because when they scrapped intermediate tier, higher tier became too easy. Students were then taking AS- level maths with a high GCSE grade but without a good grounding in algebra, and lots were dropping out or failing. Schools started entering able students for further maths for two reasons: 1) to extend the most able mathematicians who found GCSE trivial and 2) to try to bridge the gap to A-level and stop so many dropouts/students struggling.

The FSMQ is older, so perhaps schools who already used it carried on and new schools looking for a solution to the GCSE problem went for further maths. Or perhaps because FSMQ is harder, further maths GCSE presented enough of an extra challenge (and it's great).

Now maths GCSE has been reformed, it's much harder. The expectation is that it will be better preparation for A-level so a bridging qualification won't be needed. Some schools have already ditched the FM, others are seeing how it goes.

Thanks for the background, noble.very helpful.