Why is GCSE maths so hard?!

[bonbonours]

My daughter has just started her GCSE course which she will be doing over three years (she's in year 9). Maths is not her strong point so she has been asking me to help her to understand and work through her homework tasks.

For background, I got an A at GCSE Maths about 25 years ago, and have a 2:1 degree so whilst by no means a genius, I am fairly well-educated and work in an education field (not maths).

I have been completely baffled by a lot of her maths work, and we have had to watch how-to videos together (as recommended by school) to understand how to do some of the work. It is things like indices, including fractional indices, equations including fractions and minus numbers, surds (literally never heard that word before yesterday) etc. It is all deeply theoretical, and with no practical application that I can see in real life.

Considering that GCSE Maths is a basic requirement of pretty much any job and higher education course, this is insane surely? I can understand requiring people to have a decent working knowledge of usable day to day maths, percentages, ratios, interest rates, budgets, weights and measures etc. But why does everyone, need to know all this in-depth theoretical stuff? My husband works in a finance department and also has no idea about most of this stuff and never has to use it in his job.

The level 2 should be offered in place of GCSE, especially if not passed the first time.

For some students resitting in year 12 does secure them a grade 4 though. It's like they need to "fail" to put the effort in the next time (though the national resit pass rate is about 22%). The level 2 is available as long as you get a 2 or below.

It does seem like your dd is quite a specialised case when it comes to university entry. Students aiming for none performance based courses will need to have passed Maths.

I agree about having 2 qualifications. However I can see the argument that if you chose options at year 9 you would write off entire careers if you took the 'wrong' Maths qualification.

Inevitably subjects get harder 350 years ago Calculus was PhD level and algebra undergraduate.

In the 60s computing didn't exist (in schools)

In 1953 DNA was just explained, now it is a school topic

In physics whole swathes of particles have been identified but I'll bet there are huge numbers of parents who think electrons are the smallest thing.

Maths is everything.

Which videos do you watch for maths OP?

Teachermaths

I know that one from bitter experience. Didn't fail but ds2 could have done much better, very bright lad but wouldn't do the work.
Ds1 slow plodder not very bright managed 10 C's across GCSE's and dd who whilst gifted musically struggles academically and has learning difficulties. She has been given extra time but is currently arguing she doesn't need it. I'm considering a gag.

Teacher

Wouldn't the teachers know from data which children would stand no chance, I knew that dd was borderline without being told, and obviously her Maths teachers knew, over the past 4 years?
Or am I missing something?

I suppose it would be difficult to place the middle ones at Y7/9, or those borderline cases.
I do think this stress to pass GCSE's is everywhere.
Like mine has no pushing from home, we expect them to do their best, but that's all. No stress from school as most of them have their careers started already so there isn't the same need to get results iyswim. Ofsted are the same, so the kids aren't under pressure for results for the school.
Yet, even these kids are stressed for GCSE's I find it equally interesting and sad.

Sounds crazy if you have to do badly in gcse to do functional skills...

If kids get behind in primary, doesn’t it just make it a lot worse having to take gcses at 16? If they are unlikely to pass why not revise percentages, decimals, fractions, times tables and then go onto simple algebra and aim to take functional skills at 16. For those who pass functional skills they could always take gcse Maths at 18?

You only need about 50% to get an A. So yeah, it is hard to get 100% in the exam, but it isn't hard to pass.

oakmaiden but it isn't hard to pass.

Surely that depends on how good you are with maths? iirc Only about 2/3rds 'pass', so that leaves 1/3 not getting a 4+.

OK - badly phrased. It is not particularly harder than any other subject.

I was disagreeing with the sentiment "why is GCSE maths so hard".

Personally I think maths is taught appallingly in this country, and that the "badge of honour" children (and teachers) wear regarding "Not being able to do maths" does EVERYONE a great mis-service. The things in the exam are, in the main, not that hard but they are badly taught.

I think maths is taught way better now than when I was at school. Things like number lines really help you 'see' the maths. And no 'just do this method, don't try to understand why it works' any more either.

But I agree with you re 'badge of honour' wrt some parents.
I think that then some parents pass this on to their children.

We'd know who doesn't stand a chance. Those pupils are easy to make the decision for. It's the students who are middle of the road, some of whom go on to get grade 7s through sheer grit and determination and some of whom bomb out completely. Where and how do you draw the line with those students at the start of year 9 (potentially). Some students don't mature enough until year 11 by which time they can knuckle down and get a grade 6 if they need it for further studies. If those students have taken the "less academic" Maths qualification they are suddenly limited. You need Maths for Science, Psychology and other A Levels.

It would be great to have a less academic option for students that "didn't stand a chance". There is Entry Level which is below GCSE and functional skills is obviously available after year 11. Ofsted would roast a standard state school not offering all students GCSE Maths though.

Sometimes you can't do it and your child can't do it and there is no badge of honour, but you aren't going to pretend that you can.
Me and dd suffer from the same problem, retaining info.
Before my L2 Maths exam I sat up all night doing different questions so they were fresh in my head, it was a waste of time stopping before this as I'd forget half of it.
I cried like a baby when I passed.
The amount of people who thought I'd passed some bad attitude to dd surprised me. I just understood that she struggled like me.
I expected her best the same as the others.
Some people openly accused me of making excuses for her

look at Khan Academy on youtube - very good and she can look at it at her own pace

Retaining the information is a block for so many students. Their working memory gets overwhelmed and nothing "goes in". Schools are actively trying to cope with this by using research informed strategies, regular retrieval of knowledge and plenty of understanding checks.
A lot of it boils down to the basics not being understood properly so when pupils try and draw upon that background knowledge it isn't there.

I think this country does a lot better with reading than it does with maths. People are encouraged to read with their kids as often as they can. Why not count or do times tables or mental maths with them? I do it in the car or at dinner - especially if my kid asks a ‘silly’ Question like how many bubbles there are in the bath.

Good adult education might be able to give parents the confidence to do this - and also revise important concepts like compound interest, percentages, decimals, currency conversion, estimation which are useful in most people’s everyday lives.

@Teachermaths - which is why putting everyone on an escalator to doing a critical gcse maths at 16 seems like a crazy idea, especially since it is norm referenced and a certain proportion are likely to fail...

I think most people should be advised to pass a non-norm referenced arithmetic test before doing gcse. There will be people with specific SEN who will be bad at arithmetic but good with abstract maths, but I think for most people this will be beneficial to ensure people are at the right stage.

especially since it is norm referenced and a certain proportion are likely to fail...

A certain proportion has to fail under the current regime.

An arithmetic test wouldn't be fair either, there's a lot more to Maths than arithmetic. I don't really have an answer that suits everyone.

Thank you Teachermaths

Whenever I hear "I can't do it" I always answer yet, and explain that when you struggle with a subject that's what it is, a struggle.
If it wasn't we'd have no problem and it would be easy.
Even if I can't do it myself I would sit with her on an app or Bitesize and we'd struggle together, and make a note to ask her teacher.
But now we have hardly any time together and that's strictly to rest.
I trust her teacher though and he sounds brilliant, you never know it might be his first challenge a success at the school I know science has gained a level so Maths has prob improved too.

Agree that it is very hard, but the grade boundaries are also suuuuper low - I believe it was only 30%ish to get a grade 5 on the higher paper this year?

Namenic, I do very much agree that reading to children is encouraged, but not doing any kind of maths. I would go further and say there is an attitude of "leave maths to the school." It is not seen as the parents responsibility and in some ways discouraged as they may get the teaching wrong.

However, saying "5 more swing pushes", "lets count these steps", or "you have two sweets, how many would you have is I give you one more?" is where a child could start to build an understanding of numbers. Even at preschool, there is so much that can be done to start developing a child's knowledge of numbers, shapes and patterns.

Perhaps the solution lies in giving parents the confidence to try doing maths with their children and encouraging ways of doing this.

Should have posted last night- boosted by comments from teachers on here. Please don’t stress - the National Numeracy Charity is specifically there to help people who have lost (or never had) confidence in their mathematical ability. They know this often rears its head when faced by our children’s curriculum. www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/improve-your-maths (we have family involved with NN, hence my linking)

Does anyone know if there is a way for a child unlikely to get a 4 (or even a 3) in GCSE maths to take Functional Skills L2 as well as GCSEs? It wouldn't really need any special teaching, as the questions the child would likely be able to do are things that are already being covered in class. It might take some exam familiarisation though, but could be done at home. Are there private centres for this, or can a school even apply to offer it to a candidate? Googling just brings up how to do it in sixth form after GCSEs, but it seems a waste for some of these children to have to wait until then, particularly if it does affect their A-level choices (for a child who is gifted in particular areas and would like to do A-levels, but some sixth forms in the area require the maths first, a few offer both A-levels and resit GCSE maths for those with a 3 - those that do offer anything like Functional skills for lower than a 3 are mostly the colleges that offer BTEC, which then doesn't fit with other ambitions).

I have a dd in year 10 and she is finding the maths gcse hard. But she has also been very unhappy at school the last few years (friend issues) so hasn’t been in the right mind for maths which she has refused any help with, us or a tutor - taking the can’t do it / won’t do it approach.

She’s thankfully much happier now and more mature so we have been going back to basics and covering the maths in the SATs practice books/papers. It really seems to be helping her gain confidence and she did really well in a yr10 maths paper last week. It has helped things fall in to place for her (I also think she’d forgotten a lot of it!).

Whether she’ll sit the foundation or higher paper we don’t know yet. But spending time on the ‘building blocks’ of maths is working well for her.

My next door neighbour is a maths teacher (grammar school), he said that when a child has difficulties it's usually because they missed something in class - off sick or attention wandered. All you have to do is find out which bit it is....