New Maths GCSE is properly hard isn't it?

[Somerville]

I've seen this discussed, but I only just clicked how much harder it is. DD is revising, and has been given a maths past paper to do, but no answer booklet. So she asked me to mark it.

I have maths A level, but struggled a bit

Differentiation, 3-d trig, factorising quadratic equations??! I'm sure I didn't do any of that at GCSE (in mid 90's). Is A level harder too?

iGCSE has calculus in it. Normal GCSE has questions such as “given a curve, estimate the gradient by drawing tangent and calculate the gradient of that line” or “given a curve, estimate the area under the curve by splitting it into trapeziums”. Most of it are inaccessible to the majority of kids. It is a lot harder than before. Also there is no low or high grade topic as any topics can be set a very difficult question on. I remember struggling for a minute or so with a starting question in one of the Edexcel papers last summer. However, I don’t think it was as difficult as it was made out by the media or the teacher who took the paper and carried on doing it even when the kids had left the exam hall.

Edexcel igcse does have some calculus - I printed off Calculus 1,2 and 3 past paper practice questions from the Save My Exams website for ds1 last year. I can see that he struggled with some of the questions but he was only Year 10.

You think that's bad, try the Further Maths course. I revised 1 yr of university calculus 2 yrs ago so am not useless. But DD has to work thru the FM syllabus almost entirely independently & soon she will hit stuff I can't just quickly puzzle out. May have to heave the calculus book out to have a clue.

I have a mental block about trig. Luckily DD finds it easy .

One of the gcse maths papers last year had something like 18percent to get a grade 4. The paper has to stretch up to grade 9 level.

Such a great way to turn many people off maths altogether. We already have an issue with people, especially young girls, thinking they can't do maths. And this continues into adulthood. So what do we do? Create a maths exam that is so much more difficult that a grade c - you know, an average/OK grade that shouldn't be dismissed or treated as bad in any way - is a fraction of the marks, and those students are left facing a paper where they can't answer more than 2/3 of the paper.

So of course they feel disheartened and as if they can't do maths. And the problems continue at an even greater rate!

If we wanted to test the very top end it would have been better to have had an extension paper for the 8/9 level, or a three tier system. But would the Government listen?? No. They'd rather we have a whole load of teenagers who now think they are rubbish at maths.

I don't recall differentiation being part of my Maths GCSE but factoring quadratics and fucking trigonometry definitely were (mid 90s). I couldn't do it now though. Just the thought of trying makes me a bit tense. I found Maths hard and had to work very hard to get a B.

Just checked the sample paper - it is Edexcel IGCSE, and definitely includes differentiation.

Yes IGCSE has differentiation on it.
GCSE does not.

I looked at the new paper and thought it seemed a fair bit easier than the O level Maths of mid 1970s that I took (got an A grade and 99% certain I got every answer correct as I finished all the papers in about 1/3 of the time allowed, blind checked all the results twice and got the same answers).

Genuine question for noble or anyone else. May I ask why factorising quadratics is considered so hard?

I have this holiday started doing them with my DD who is y8 and is less able and she is taking to them quite well. (I am doing it as a confidence boost and a flip learning.)

Or is it only harder ones where a1 or the stuff like completing the square?

(Btw I agree the new one is way harder than the old, DD1 would really have struggled with last year's paper).

I remember doing calculus at O level! Never ever used it again - I think it's fine to leave it to A level.
The level 3 additional maths is really hard and DS gave up with it.
I think the point about it putting able children off maths A level is really important. It's counter productive.

Difficult when they want to find a way to differentiate between the students who find maths and could sail through the previous papers. But agree much better to have a different/extra paper for the more able to access the 8 s and 9 s like the triple science used to.

I wish DD could coast along at a firm A* level instead of being pushed-pushed-pushed reaching for a 9. I don't see the push doing her good.

Annoying too that the idea of the new harsh grade regime was thinly dressed up as "This will raise attainment on average". It won't. The same number of kids who struggle with math in past will now struggle to get a 4 rather than a C. Math-disinclined & Average ability kids won't get better, and high ability kids will just feel more stress.

It almost seems like more resources to facilitate better quality teaching rather than extra hard exams might achieve more than moving the exam goalposts. Funny that.

Factorising quadratics and solving quadratics have always been on GCSE and are not considered to be that challenging. They feature on the foundation paper now.

We do them with higher set Year 7 and 8s in non-selective school.

I didn't have to factorise hard quadratics at GCSE. I'm sure of that, because I remember the A level lesson where I started doing it. Maybe in my GCSE there were straightforward ones (where the leading coefficient is 1) that I've forgotten.

DD1 has enjoyed this maths course but my younger kids are going to struggle a bit, I suspect. Looking at where DD2 is, at end of year 6, it seems a hellish lot of mathematics to learn by year 11 if you're not already working far ahead of expectations. Because it's not like there are a load of easy questions on this paper, and then just some really hard ones at the end. I had to spend 10 mins working out one of the 1 point questions.

Anyone harrumphing on how standards have dropped since their day should download one of last years papers, and see how hard and fast they have to work to get an 8/9. I certainly couldn't get that in the time available.

Interesting point IIjkk I hadn't thought of it like that. DD1 and DD2 got A s and a 9 may have differentiated them from their peers but yes I hadn't thought of the extra pressure that may have added. It is not necessarily the system though, I think its the constant measurement/league tables and pressure schools and parents apply in that an 8 or (or a B in old money) is a slip up in some areas. Lots of children should be happy with an 8 (old A) but won't be - how do we fix that.

I'm another O Level generation and yes differentiation, integration, quadratics, matrices, set theory all in the O Level.

I think they have made it harder so there is less jump to A Level.

BUT although I think everyone should have a maths qualification in my day you had O Level maths, CSE maths and CSE commercial arithmetic.

So glad sets/venn diagrams are back, you need them for computer science/computing GCSE and A Level, there should be more cross over like this with CS, physics and even things like geography.

Our school harped on so much that no-one should expect to get a 9 that it made the kids work harder - bloody mindedness I think.

DD got a 9 - she started out as a low A, (low7/high6) and got a 9 because she wanted to prove the teacher wrong. Did the same in Eng lit too... language, however, was a 7 because according to her "no one needs to know what a bloody past participle is" - despite the fact she wants to teach English!!

Differentiation in O level but not integration.

Have to say that at DD1's (high achieving) school there is no pressure on about getting a 9, and the highest level of prediction or target, is "A* = 8/9". It does worry me though that kids who could do maths A level and "only" get a 7 might be turned off. My onwards study was arts, but maths A level has always been useful, both in terms of skills/confidence with maths, and early in my career it marked my CV out as a bit different to other arts grads.

I'm suspicious of the "turned off b/c it's not challenging enough argument".

No one ever says "My kid got turned off of...
-shopping
-hanging out with their friends
-watching lousy movies
-staying in bed until 1pm
-fussing over the dog
... because it's so boring and never challenging enough." I don't buy it. Kids get turned off (they call this boredom) b/c they don't like the people or the atmosphere.

I was about to say IGCSE Edexcel has differentiation on it but see some others have already pointed that out.

The majority of kids at DS's superselective go on to do Maths A level and therefore they chose to do this and also at least 2/3 cohort do additional Maths at gcse too.

I think it's proper hard and really for children who are not very mathematically inclined it's a turn-off. I struggled with Maths at school, although I did pass my O Level, but I'm already finding I can't help DD (Year 7) with hers as much of what they're now doing is already stretching my own skills. I will not be able to offer her support very soon. And for a child who doesn't really see the point of the subject it's going to be a challenge to keep her engaged when I can't help her with aspects she finds hard.

I really do struggle to see the point of making it so much harder for children who are not keen or likely to pursue STEM subjects.

How can state schools still be teaching IGCSE? They don’t count for the league tables and I thought they weren’t accredited any more?

Schools don’t need to teach IGCSE to teach differentiation to the most able, Further Maths GCSE and Additional Maths include it.

May I ask why factorising quadratics is considered so hard?

I don’t think factorising easy quadratics is, although it needs a solid grasp of times tables which means Foundation students struggle, and they can get confused around negative numbers. Even solving by factorising is on Foundation these days, but only for the really top end.

Factorising where a>1 is bloody awful, I hate it. Some lucky people can do it just by looking and fiddling with a few numbers - I’m not one of them! I always do it by splitting coefficients. I remember when I did GCSE I always solved using the formula just because I couldn’t be arsed with factorising at all

Thanks noble . I think when a>1 if it is prime then it's OK, but otherwise it is a pain as too many options. I do see what you mean re the time tables and the negative numbers. One of the reasons I am doing it with DD is to get her to practice identifying factor pairs in a different way.
(Note to self, I must look up splitting coefficients as I remember you explaining it before and it looked confusing to me!)