£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).

Yup... all of the above.

I think people are right that school's answers to this will be, and ought to be core maths. My DS was doing it at his first sixth form college before he swapped to a different school. Any student pursuing certain A Levels had to do it. Not a bad idea at all.

But that was a sixth form college so no threat to classes further down the school in terms of staffing.

He did report that the teacher was pretty rubbish.

Frankly, with all the frees are kids are now lolling about in because they only do 3 A levels, core maths is a good wheeze. The issue, as ever , is staffing.

Presumably the theory goes that for every extra class of Maths students the school gets another £12k, on top of the usual per capita, so it can use that £12k to raise the salaries of Maths teachers and lure more in?

I agree the stipulation for extra students is madly unfair. And may be counter productive,

Yes, and by paying maths teachers more (as already basically happens anyway....) other teachers will leave!!

Division- but the school needs to have a spare maths teacher in the first place! Recruitment of maths teachers is a huge problem already.

But they will have the extra top up money with which to raise Maths teachers salaries, and so, in the mind of the government, making the job instantly irresistible!

Roll up, roll up’ everyone with a Maths A Level (OK, a GCSE will do. Ok, go on then, a Brownie Badge for Arithmetic... ) enrol for a PGCE NOW!

My maths goes something like, if you get an extra 30 pupils to sit a Maths "A" level then in practically every school that will mean employing an extra maths teacher. The income is 30 x £600 which is £18000, which at present costs of good maths teachers is going to equate to about a 1/3 of a maths teacher with add on costs.
So I think if schools do the maths and also think about the need for extra rooms possibly and more equipment they are likely to come up with an answer that they will be worse of by taking up this offer.
Clearly HM Govs fag pack was not big enough to do all the calculations!

Admission, but they will also have the basic per capita budget for the extra pupils to pay for the teachers. The £18k will be on top of that.

I’d teach one A level class for 18k a year. They need to try and tempt ex teachers people back in.

Maybe the government should start listening to teachers and former teachers and build a scheme based on what they hear, rather than introducing bolt-on patch-up panic measures fraught with knock on ill
Effects.

But division the per capita funding will be there anyway : that won't be new money... it'll in most cases be the school's usual students doing an extra qualification (core maths) or choosing A level maths due to the hard sell that will ensue over, say, French or biology.

Maybe they are assuming schools will also benefit form being able to sack all their MFL teachers and downsize their arts departments!

So all of the schools that stop at 16 will get no extra money AT ALL

and colleges that already have 800 kids taking maths A level will get an extra few pennies for the ones they cram into the corridors

SUCH a dumb idea

My take on it is that the Government wanted to be able to say they had done ‘something’ for education. In reality all this is is a PR exercise and to get those clamouring for better funding for schools off their backs. It is only marginally above smoke and mirrors and window dressing. Will some schools end up manipulating the data by discouraging numbers taking the subject for the year the baseline applies? If it is a success and actually costs the Government money will they quietly move the goal posts or scrap the scheme like they seem to do with most schemes that get good take up?

They've already dumbed down A-level maths: there is NO WAY Core maths should have gained recognition as an equivalent to the traditional maths A-level. And the kids will tell you this too. So not just my judgement

Core maths isn’t equivalent to maths A-level, it’s only an AS for a start!

the massive push on STEM subjects to the detriment of Arts and Humanities really winds me up and I wonder is this yet another example of demeaning arts and humanities subjects

me too. However, much the government wants to push STEM subjects, and I do appreciate why, the simple fact is that not everyone can be a Maths teacher, engineer or work in IT. You still need people who are good at languages, writing, to become lawyers etc.

I can do my job with simple numeracy skills. I really don't need A level standard Maths (which is good, because I only did GCSE). Never in my whole life have I wished I'd done Maths A level. I have wished I'd done Latin though.

Apart from this, what is this massive push on STEM to the detriment of other subjects?

There’s not a shortage of lawyers.

Interesting article about why this policy is a pile of arse:

schoolsweek.co.uk/600-maths-premium-%e2%89%a0-more-maths-a-levels/

Do you mean why Fallen?

The uptake of A levels in arts subjects - and especially MFL - tells its own story.

I don't think MFL is necessarily dropping because of the drive towards STEM, I think MFL has its own massive heap of issues. It was totally screwed over when Labour decided to make it non-compulsory at GCSE back in 2004. Loads of MFL teachers were made redundant, take-up plummeted, it's never really recovered and now they're desperate for teachers because it's Ebacc.

When I took French A-level at school, there were too many kids in the class (more than 30) so I didn't have a desk. I just sat on a chair that I had to get from another class and balanced books on my lap.

A poorly thought out education policy? Surely not.

I agree its' not entirely the reason... but when I surveyed my students last week viz my other thread one thing they all talked about was the cachet (sp?) of physics and maths these days.

Music is also in some kind of terminal decline , drama is dropping, English Lit is slightly under threat (although perhaps form other English subjects to an extent)

Clever pupils used to be steered almost equally towards arts and hums as they were to science and maths. I don't think that is the case any more.

I suppose the question is "is it wrong to steer the bright kids towards maths and physics when that's what the country needs?"

It is state education after all.

When I took French A-level at school, there were too many kids in the class (more than 30) so I didn't have a desk. I just sat on a chair that I had to get from another class and balanced books on my lap.

I promise that's not a problem any more! I'm an MFL teacher. For French this year we have 4 at A2 and 9 at AS. German & Spanish have about the same - and we're doing better than most of the other schools in our (affluent, highly educated, high % uni) area.