foundation vs higher maths?

[TheVastMajority]

Im a foster parent, my own kids are very able at maths, so Ive not come across this before - hoping a maths teacher can advise?

FC has been placed in higher math class. SHe struggles but in class is managing. AT home she received regular tutoring, and seems to get most of the concepts, but none of this is translating to success in exams.

Recently she completed a GCSE higher practice paper - she is Y10. Her results were dire - 7 or 8 out of 80 for each paper, so working at around 10%. Now a lot of her classmates also did poorly, but most were at least in the 50% range at this stage - given that they have another year to go, this was good.

Her maths teacher has suggested that she consider moving to foundation, and consolidating her knowledge.

SHe is resisting, saying she needs 80% to pass at foundation and 12% to pass at higher?

This is the bit I really dont understand.

My own feelings are that as she has no desire to continue with a STEM subject or even a business subject at 6th form, she should opt for foundation and get a good grade, albeit a maximum of 5. This will boost her self esteem and be a solid pass, rather than a possible fail.

AM I understanding it correctly? And as a Math teacher, would you think this is a sensible approach?

That level does sound like foundation is worth a try. Is she in the most appropriate class at school? Getting 50% at end of year 10 is very much the top set at my school and they work at a fast pace. is there a lower set still doing higher which may be taught at her pace? Students who were getting about 14 marks on higher by October in year 11 have mostly stayed on it at my school.

I don't think her percentages are exactly right, but she has the right idea.

To get a 4 or a 5 on the foundation paper you need to get more correct. This is because the first part of the foundation paper contains 'easier' questions. The grade 4 and 5 questions appear on both papers, but the foundation paper gives them a 'run in' to them, where as in the higher paper they are immediately faced with the grade 4 questions.

For a student who makes silly mistakes, if they drop too many questions they can go down to a 3 even if they get the grade 4/5 questions right. Whereas on the higher paper, they might get something wrong at grade 4/5, but pick up the odd mark on a grade 6 question to compensate.

Alternatively, a less secure pupil might panic at a paper where they can only do a few questions.
On the other hand, dropping down to foundation at the last minute can cause issues if they are given 'easy' topics that they might be rusty on and not practiced since y9.

thank you. Boo32, is that 14% or 14/80? I think she is in lower class for the higher group.

Teentimestwo, what would you recommend?

Im getting mixed advice - the teacher is suggesting she drop, as is the head of Virtual Schools, who knows child.

But others are saying not to drop and she has time to catch up.

SHe is very lazy and Im wondering if a compromise might be good - that if she has not made X grade by X date on higher, we will put her into foundation? This means she will need to work hard to get her grades and understanding up by mocks in January, and then make a decision at that point. It gives her something to work on.

DO you think it would be a good idea to try her out in a foundation paper in a simulated exam setting and see how she gets on, so that she has a feel for the type of paper and gets a feel for her own abilities?

Last year it was about 17% for a pass (4) on Higher and about 50% for a pass on Foundation. When she says 80%, it makes it sound much harder to pass on Foundation than it actually is.

I agree with her teacher. If she is getting 7 marks out of 80 on the higher paper (9%), then mathematically she should be sitting Foundation. What is the point of her sitting for 4.5 hours next summer to sit exams where she isn’t going to be able to answer the vast majority of the questions? She would need to double her score to pass, and because the questions on higher are so difficult, that’s actually not going to be easy to do.

Yes, her potential grade at Foundation will be capped at a 5, but at the moment she isn’t anywhere near even getting a 4.

The only times I would suggest her persisting with higher was if she was desperate for a grade higher than a 5 (e.g. needed a 6 for A-level science) and was willing to put lots of extra work in and possibly hiring a tutor, or if something had gone disastrously wrong for Y10 exams and the results weren’t an accurate reflection of her real ability.

But you say she is lazy and doesn’t really have any motivation to get higher than a 5, so Foundation should be the way forward.

I recommend seeing what @noblegiraffe has to say, or listening to the school if you have faith in them.

I have no idea what is best in your case as I'm not a teacher, just an interested maths degree parent of 2 (adopted as it happens) DDs who struggle with maths.

What is her general confidence at maths like, and also does she make 'easy' mistakes when dealing with things like negative numbers, times tables or simply misreading questions?

x-post with noble

Hah Teen, already there!

noble thank you so much - that makes it clearer. Ive requested a meet with the math teacher, and I hope we can come to some agreement on way forward. WIll it be very hard to move from higher to foundation do you think? CHallenging in social terms, but Im considering the work - will her stint in higher have given her some benefit in Foundation?

There’s overlap between the two papers, so the questions that she answered correctly on the higher paper are most likely also on the foundation paper and would be some of the more difficult questions on the paper, so that might boost her confidence.
We move quite a few students from higher to foundation at this stage, and even after Y11 mocks so it should be fine. At my school we found that borderline students who moved to foundation actually had a better chance of getting a 5 than students who stuck with higher.

Oh no, have just seen the point about the silly mistakes.
I'm worried now too.
My dd has a target of level 4, but she makes silly mistakes, and will take lower paper.
This seems very unfair as those on higher paper can make marks up with higher questions.

Don’t worry gilly there is plenty of scope for making silly mistakes on Foundation and still getting a 4! Remember you only needed 50% last year.

Maths teacher here. I’d get her to try a foundation past paper and see what her score is. Chances are she’d be better doing foundation.

I'm glad to hear too there is room for silly mistakes.

I'm just listening to DD2 revising for y8 maths test. '3 times 3 is 6...' [despair]

OP can I jump on your thread a little? Is foundation Maths equivalent to a GCSE? When Unis say they want 5 GCSEs inc Maths and English does it matter wether it is foundation you did or higher?

Aw, thanks I can breathe again now.
Had end of year (y9) test this week, not sure what she got but she said it went well.
last time she said this she made double figures, just about.
I think she is going to do a bit of work over the summer holidays, as she has such a long holiday she quite enjoys doing a bit.

Foundation and higher are tiers of entry for maths GCSE. It means that students sit a paper with an appropriate level of questions for them - a grade 5 is a grade 5 and the GCSE certificate doesn’t say whether the student sat the higher or foundation paper.

3 times 3 is 6...

Hah Teen I had exactly this conversation with a Y9 student this week. So frustrating!

Thanks noble

If your DC scores low mark in the Higher paper, they are at risk of failing it altogether and does not receive a grade.
From the information you stated, Foundation is a safer bet. I dealt with a few cases like this before and they weren’t in my class. I just had to talk to them and their parents objectively about the chance of getting the required grade. They thanked me on Result day by the way.

thank you all for your input, its reassuring that I'm getting the same message from people who understand this stuff.

Now to convince the nipper....

It's so frustrating noble . She can solve simple quadratics, do averages questions with frequency tables, but then does things like that. Oh well, I have 3 more years of torture to help her get more consistent.

I was just coming back to ask about silly mistakes, if it's not derailing too much?

Out of the questions my dd gets wrong, I'd say about 25% are silly mistakes.
I know she'd still get some wrong, but would like to help her lower the 25% of silly mistakes like the example above.

We have moved on from "well it was close" or "it was nearly right"

gilly What I found with my DD1 was going through her past test papers and identifying common errors with her. This made her more alert to not messing them up again.

So for DD1:

• reading from graphs

a) use a rule and draw a vertical/horizontal line across to the scale b) work out what 1 small square equals rather then just assuming / guessing

• be very alert when multiplying by negative numbers
• watch that squaring is squaring and not multiplying by 2 (see above)
• not mixing units in questions (eg minutes v hours in speed problems)
• adding perimeters, tick off or colour in the sides as you do them to ensure you include all the sides

Just making her more alert to common errors helped quite a lot to eliminate them. DD2 is still a work in progress on this.

I try to view lost marks due to silly mistakes as a positive, because it means there are easy marks to gain without having to understand more maths!
I also try to view no silly mistakes as a positive as it shows they are being accurate.

Two thirds of the GCSE papers are calculator allowed. So many silly mistakes would be averted by students using their calculator all the time on the calculator papers. So many times I see a grid or column written method gone wrong, or a numerical mistake on the calc papers and just tear my hair out. No need for it! Do or check all calculations on your calculator!

Other things that can help are reading the question through fully first to get the gist of the question, then reading again and highlighting instructions like ‘give the units of your answer’ or ‘round to 3 sig fig’ then do the question, then at the end read it again and check you have actually followed the highlighted instructions.

Some good points there I think I'll do her a little list.
The problem is unless we sit her down in her spare time or holidays we don't get to see her work.
I'm definitely going to bug her teacher during the next 2 years though, I hope they don't mind.
Silly mistakes really bug me because as Maths doesn't come naturally to her, I see it as a lost opportunity to gain the marks she should iyswim.

Another question, sorry.
Why is Maths tiered unlike English? It seems to disadvantage those that may get some harder questions right but some wrong at the lower levels.
I'm sure foundation is right for dd atm, but what happens to those who may study hard, improve greatly, are able to do the higher paper, but are given the foundation as they weren't capable of higher in earlier years like Y9/10.