£600 per pupil for every extra pupil studying maths in sixth form

[noblegiraffe]

Announced in the Budget today was £600 per pupil for every extra pupil who takes A-level maths or Core Maths in 6th form. This will be from 2019 and will use student numbers from this year as a baseline.

While this seems like a nice boost to maths, words cannot express how pissed off I am by the 'extra pupils' caveat. Schools, like mine, who are already offering Core Maths and have piled high maths classes due to lower than other schools' entry requirements will be penalised.

If we want any extra funding, what that will mean is even bigger class sizes than we already have (20+), accepting students who probably shouldn't be on the course, and more work for the classroom teacher (and I bet that the extra money will not be coming my way).

this is extra money. For pupils 16-18. If you don't have a 6th form, you wouldn't need it.

So it won't improve GCSE teaching in a school without a sixth form, will it?

It won't improve GCSE teaching in schools with 6th forms- it's aimed at 16+

Schools with sixth forms won’t need to improve their GCSE results at the 4-9 grades to access this money, they just need to start teaching Core Maths. It’s not about GCSE results.

As a country we underproduce graduates in mathematical subjects.

Maths is already an extremely popular A level - has the biggest numbers at my son's old school and at his current sixth form college. Surely everyone who's any good at maths is already doing the A level?

I'm definitely in favour of more people (everyone really) carrying on with some sort of basic maths/arithmetic skills though.

Nope, Atia, there are lots of girls who are good at maths who are not doing A-level. 37212 girls to 58032 boys in 2017. GCSE results at A*/A in 2015 favoured boys, but not by that much!

Surely everyone who's any good at maths is already doing the A level?

No, of course not - there are plenty of people who get strong grades in other A level subjects who could have done A level maths.

Imo all A level students should have to do maths plus one writing subject, to a level beyond GCSE. This is the only way we can be competitive with other countries.

Or perhaps we should all do 6 subjects/IB?
The point is that huge numbers stay on at 16-18, unlike in many other countries.

And yet again anyone who is either gifted in, or just interested in, any of the arts or humanities subjects are made to feel like they are less valuable.

My DS is a good all-rounder - gets top marks in every subject bar PE, Art & Music where he is performs closer to middle of the year group, so he is more than capable in STEM subjects but his great loves are literature, history and modern studies (a Scottish subject which is a bit like politics/current affairs/kind of like history but without the historical context!). I can see him either working for a non-profit or as a journalist when he's older - not valued because not STEM-based careers.

I get that STEM subjects are important but not to the detriment of other subjects.

Haskell I do agree with that point - I think we narrow too much and I think it's got worse in recent years - I remember when you HAD to do a FML, but not anymore. Here in Scotland it's worse - yes you do 5 subjects for Highers but you only do 6/7 at Nat 5 which is less than most people will be studying at GCSE in the rest of the U.K. At my DS's school they have to make choices at the end of S2 which is super early and the "pathways" are really restrictive. Nothing is essential apart from maths and English, so you can drop science and all languages after 2 years of high school which is nuts!

Maths A level can go with non STEM subjects.
When Core Maths was first developed, I seem to remember there was a suggestion that everyone did Maths of some sort post16; Functional skills, GCSE, Core Maths or A level. I thought then and now, that it was a great idea, but there is nothing like the workforce required.

Absolutely agree Jed DH is a top scientist in his field and one of his huge gripes is scientists who cannot write or communicate effectively. Non STEM subjects teach skills which are critical to success in science and research at its highest levels.

The Smith report that came out recently into post-16 maths said it would take something like 10 years of concerted effort for there to be enough teachers to have every student study some form of maths post-16.

This seems to be passing the problem onto schools. 'You can have extra money if you get kids to sign up to Core Maths. Yes we know you can't hire a qualified maths teacher to actually teach it so you're going to have to be a bit creative'.

This problems been 40+ years in the making though. When I was in secondary school, there was an outcry about maths being taught be science and economics graduates not maths graduates. That generation are now senior teachers, and subsequent generations have been mainly taught by non-maths graduates, or those with lower classifications in maths, primarily because if one has a 2i or 1 in maths, one can earn 4 times or more what a teacher earns (DH has a 1st Maths and MMath).
When I was at university (early 1990s) father was astonished at what undergraduates were being taught, as he had done much of it in school, some even in Prep school! DH's lecturers bemoaned the level of a level candidates, who needed extra classes in first year of their undergraduate degree to be able to manage the learning excpected of them. I dread to think what senior lecturers think of undergraduates now, 25 years on.

A very disappointing budget for schools funding. Will the government ring fence this £600 per extra pupil for only maths costs? Maths classes are big enough as they are, teachers don't need more pressure and less able students in year 12.

Oh noblegiraffe. That "creative" comment reminded me of my old head. 4 staff short in the department and cover supervisors basically doing KS3. Parents complain (reasonably), and she told me to make sure every class had a teacher. "Be creative". I cried.

Charlie Stripp has already said that a GCSE grade 5 is good enough to be accepted onto the A'level course.

I don't envy the teachers who have to get Grade 5 students to pass with ever increasing class sizes

Charlie Stripp is not widely agreed with on that point.

And yet again anyone who is either gifted in, or just interested in, any of the arts or humanities subjects are made to feel like they are less valuable.

This doesn't seem to be the case in reality, though, because we produce, for example, far more history graduates each year than physics graduates. (If I recall correctly it is roughly twice as many history graduates each year than physics graduates - and a bigger fraction of the physics graduates are international students.)

Parents/students in practice don't actually value STEM, to the detriment of the economy.

The point is that huge numbers stay on at 16-18, unlike in many other countries.

What is the evidence for this? In the US, for example, it is standard to stay at school until 18 to graduate high school - and students do need to do some form of maths until 18.

How about waiting for the details?

"The Treasury said the money for maths skills will cover a £600 payment to schools and colleges for every extra pupil who continues to study the subject beyond GCSE.

Schools and sixth form colleges will receive the cash boost “for every additional new student who decides to take maths or further maths A Levels, or core maths”, officials said.

“There is growing need for advanced quantitative and maths skills in the workforce to ensure the UK remains a competitive force in the global marketplace.”"

schoolsweek.co.uk/budget-2017-schools-to-get-600-for-extra-a-level-maths-pupils/

So extra money for Further Maths too. This will hopefully go some way to make up for the budget changes that mean schools are now only funded for 3 subjects leading to some schools dropping FM entirely.

How do you determine “new” student? It’s very confusing. Do they mean converts after others have nailed their colours to the Maths mast?

For what it’s worth, when my elder DD was at school, the good, confident, mathematicians chose maths. The ones who felt overwhelmed and scraped an A* in the sciences and maths but didn’t feel Maths A level was for them and understandably felt other subjects, in which they also achieved highly, were a more natural fit, may now be pressurised into maths. A low A level result may reduce university options and top universities will be out. The best non stem students won’t risk it.

Non examined maths in the 6th form is a good idea but ultimately who wants to do a degree in a subject they don’t really like? Of course we could cut out half the history degrees to concentrate the minds of pupils into stem subjects..........

I know a young man who did Maths, FM and Physics at A level. That’s 3. He’s now doing maths at a very highly regarded university. Three A levels isn’t necessarily the issue it will be more about lack of teachers and too few students taking FM. Schools need to pool students which is actually what happened in the case above.

This could become a bone of contention in schools around application times for A Level when heads of sixth form are 'persuaded' by SLT to strong arm students into maths A levels where there is anything like a vacillating child.

I can't see how that is NOT going to set departments against each other and increase the sense of blue riband and Cinderella subjects..and probably kill off some A levels in many schools

Thing is, English and History are going to be pissed off because they've lost kids to maths, and maths are going to be pissed off because they've now got classes of 30 who got 5s at GCSE (because Charlie Stripp says it's ok ) and the extra money will probably be taken for someone's pet project and the maths department will see none of it. And whichever poor non-maths teacher who gets roped into teaching Core Maths will be really pissed off.