School saying Y8 won't pass GCSE maths

[MarmiteChocolate]

DS is in Y8 at a big local secondary. She has always found maths tricky and this is becoming more and more obvious as they go thru the curriculum.... she got 11% on her end of Y7 maths paper and 12% on her Xmas Y8 paper. She has been having an hours tutoring once per week for nearly a year and started right at the basics with her tutor, who she enjoys seeing.
At parents evening last week her maths teacher told us that DS won't get a 4 for her GCSE and has basically written her off already. I asked about whether the school would run extra lessons for those inthe bottom set or what they can do to help DS - basically nothing according to the teacher.
I'm wondering how I should deal with this. Should I ask them to assess her for dyscalcula or a specific maths learning need? Which might give her TA support or extra time? Just stick with the tutoring and hope for the best? I'm useless at maths so can't help her at home. How do I tackle the school? Surely they should be supporting all kids to get a 4 at least in maths?

You need to be more positive and put maths into everyday life. She needs to see maths as part and parcel of life and even fun. Get her playing with numbers - sudoku, patterns, weighing and measuring. Singing times tables.Go back to beginning and ensure there are no essential blocks missing.
Practice is way forward. Do it together. Get some revision exercise books and work through them. They have them for every year. Mainly turn maths into a practical subject. Use a twelve cake recipe and get her to double it. Measure how much material is needed for new curtain or to sew napkins for Christmas lunch.
Does she play an instrument? That can help enormously with maths.

I have always maintained that, SEN or other issues aside, a can do attitude and great teachers can push a child's grades much higher than predicted
They can, and I've taught many students who've made more than expected progress, but with the way boundaries are worked out when one child unexpectedly achieves a higher grade, another gets an unexpectedly lower grades.

The courses are designed so not everyone can get a 9-4 grade. As Noble said, if we're honest about this then we are accused of writing children off. Even on this thread people are saying schools have failed if students don't get to the 4+ GCSE standard when it's impossible for everyone to get the 9-4 grade.

the school is letting her down massively and is really rubbish. I think you should put in a complaint to ofsted about this attitude of not appearing to care, as you are going to need to put in loads of extra effort to make up for their shortcomings, and if she improves then the school will take the credit in terms of improved results which is sickening.

firstly the school must stop giving her tests that are so far beyond her current abilities that she can only hope to score such tiny percentages. this would be demotivating for any student and will do a lot of additional harm whilst teaching her nothing. she should be given tests pitched just above her ability level so that she can get at least 50% and can see improvement as she progresses.

secondly you need to address your own attitude. a major contributing factor to NT/nonSEN children being poor at maths is having one parent who regularly describes themselves as being bad at maths or hating maths. you yourself need to be positive about maths, possibly start addressing your own maths skills shortcomings and sit with her when she is doing maths work, doing your own exercises to improve your maths skills (without any complaint or negativity). if she has had years of influence of seeing you being resigned/accepting of a lack of numeracy that will have done a lot of damage which is your responsibility to undo.

its great that the maths tutoring is helping - can this be made more frequent?

You can't complain to Ofsted about one comment, ffs. The comment wasn't wrong either - as it stands this student is unlikely to reach a grade 4 at GCSE.

Op had had lots of good advice here and seems keen to support her child, which will be a big help in making that above average progress that noble was talking about.

Op, what is the school's percentage pass rate for maths? How does it compare to the national average? What is the school's progress score? This ought to give you an idea of the quality of teaching and level of expectations.

Just to give you hope -
My DD has ADHD, and wasn't meeting required standards in maths in primary school. At the start of year 8, it was mentioned that her maths was a concern; at the end of year 8, she got 36% in the summer exam.
Eventually, at the end of year 9, she was put.into a special maths set of about 8 students who were failing maths. With the extra support and a teacher who recognised the gaps in DD's knowledge (times tables were a core part of her problem), she's now hopeful of getting a 6 in the GCSEs this summer, or at least a high 5.

Corbett maths online has been a life saver, on top of the support her current teacher has given her. More than anything, though, I really believe that in DD's case, it all just started to make sense to her a lot later than her peers, and when it did, the improvement was exponential, so please.don't give up hope.
DD now loves maths and would happily do it all day, every day, whereas she was scared of it before.

@noblegiraffe. I am really freaked by that excel chart, which would make it seem there is nothing one can add at secondary school. Is that so? My Dd would be one of the ones who narrowly missed it, 4 years ago in SATS. Is she wasting her time trying to grind through?

JC, what is her school's progress score? That will give you an idea of how likely they are to pull her up by enough to pass.

I am really freaked by that excel chart, which would make it seem there is nothing one can add at secondary school. Is that so? My Dd would be one of the ones who narrowly missed it, 4 years ago in SATS. Is she wasting her time trying to grind through?
It's not a waste of time working towards getting the 4 at GCSE, more that it's wrong of people to say that if academically weaker students don't get the 4 it's wrong to say that school have failed when the exam are set up so not everyone can achieve a 4 or higher and the bell curve would suggest that there's an ability range, with those weaker at ks2 being likely to be weaker at GCSE.

Remember that these sorts of statistics, as with most things for GCSE, are national cohort levels.

I've taught students predicted a 5 who have gone on to achieve 8s. On n individual level that's excellent, but it doesn't change the national picture that statistically that outcome was unlikely if tracking ks2 to gcse.

I'm useless at maths so can't help her at home

This kind of attitude won’t be helping. Does she know you describe yourself as useless at maths? It’s GCSE, not A Level, so surely you can bring yourself up to speed and help her? GCSE maths is critical for any even remotely professional job. It’s even required well into adulthood when applying for learning and development opportunities. If I were you I would make it a priority to change your attitude to maths and help your daughter. You can’t expect the school to have the resources to do this for you sadly.

Some are still counting on fingers to do 4 times tables. Very frustrating for a year 4 class

I still count on my fingers occasionally. Got a C in my GCSE maths, but have post-graduate qualifications in another subject and a professional job. It surely doesn't matter which way kids choose to work something out if they understand the concepts and get the right answer. I think sometimes kids are taught whatever the fashionable system for working things out is at the time, which may not suit the way their brains work or just cause greater confusion.

Good maths teachers make such a difference. I had two teachers who could actually teach maths well, one in Y6, and one in Y8 and Y9. Sadly not the one who was teaching the top set when I was in Y10 and Y11. Teaching has improved loads since I was at school, but I don't think maths teaching has improved enough.

GCSE maths is critical for any even remotely professional job

It really isn't. I've never used anything beyond the mental arithmetic I could do at primary school.

GCSE maths is critical for any even remotely professional job

No it's not! Have you looked at a GCSE maths paper lately?!

I can't help but I just wanted to say, I was failing at maths y7-9 and than at the end of y9 we had a really amazing teacher in the lowest set I was in. It wasn't a particularly small class but it just made maths click for me. I only got a C but I ended up being an accountant and really enjoy it. There are so many parts of maths kids don't get to see till later that they might love or find much easier eg statistics.
I don't think the teacher is writing them off, they are there to be realistic as well as helpful. It would be of no help to say your child is on track when they're not.
DD is in y7 and severely dyscalculic and co.lletely failed her sats. This time last year I was battling with her about number bonds. The other day we were doing them and she said 'why didn't you explain it like that before'. I didn't explain it any different, it just clicked for her. Don't give up hope and keep being positive. They have a lot of years of maths left and likewise lots of top set kids end up failing/deteriorating rapidly come KS4.

And when would any parent have time to do GCSE maths? It's so difficult now, they are doing stuff in Y6 primary school I didn't see until GCSEs. I haven't been able to help with maths at all after Y7, no way, it's a foreign country to me. Much of the 11+ stuff was pretty tricky.

If I struggle, loads of other parents would.

@nobelgiraffe How does the table - 4a, 4b etc correlate to predicted scores?

In Sats I mean. I have been given predicted scores for DD2.

'GCSE maths is critical for any even remotely professional job'

Sorry but I also have to strongly disagree there unless you're talking about opening up opportunities for post 16 courses. I did the old A-C (much easier) maths GCSE and I can't remember anything besides basic arithmetics from primary school. Excel skills are much more useful for jobs and learning that requires critical thinking skills, not pure maths. Children who have previously struggled with maths are often excellent at things like excel because they have lots of experience in figuring out how to make things easier lol.
I'm currently relearning everything by helping DD with y7 maths hw.

Juliette20
We don't have much, if any, information on the current scaled scores for the new SATS.

Loosely speaking schools will tend to divide it up roughly like this, though numbers will vary and they don't perfectly equate to old levels:
Lower attaining 80-95 (old level 3)
Middle attaining 96-109 (old level 4)
High attaining 110-120 (old level 5)

Generally speaking (though @noblegiraffe will correct me if I'm wrong as I'm on maternity and suffering from baby brain today) at GCSE middle attaining students would typically be expected to achieve a 4-6 at GCSE, lower attaining students would typically attain 1-4, and higher attaining students would typically achieve 7-9.

People speak of the new grades at GCSE often inaccurately by saying things like "an 8 is an A*/ a 5 is a B" when they aren't.

The old C/B grades have been divided into 3, so a 4 is the lower to middle of the C grade, a 5 is the upper end of a C and the lower end of a B, and a 6 is the higher end of a B.
The same happens with A/A and 7/8/9. A 7 is the lower end of an A, the 8 is the top of an A and the lower end of an A, and the 9 is the very top of an A* (only given to a small %).
With that it's got to be remembered that the specifications have changed so they aren't like for like comparisons.

4b was the old 'expected' so in theory led to a C grade.
100 is the new 'expected' so theoretically leads to a new Grade 4.

But it really isn't set in stone. Working solidly in secondary can make a difference, as can being bone idle.

Ok thanks. DD2 is predicted 103 in Maths from a practice test (teacher said this was ok, but she could do with focusing more on maths with her so that there was more wriggle room should she have an off day on the test day) and English was 113, so that's very good. NC levels made so much more sense to me as a parent.

And sorry for hijacking, OP.

Juliette20
Levels, though having their own flaws, made a lot more sense to everyone than the current system. Just wait until you get to KS3 and every school has its own system!

103 in maths would (assuming effort remains good) probably lead to a 4/5 at GCSE maths. 113 in English would probably lead to a 7/8 at GCSE depending on the aptitude of the student as the GCSE course is miles away from primary English so we sometimes find that students come in with really high KS2 English and find it hard to keep up because the curriculum is so different, whereas maths tends to build a lot more logically.

DD2 is predicted 103 in Maths
I really don't see how on earth a primary school can reasonably predict to an accuracy of 1 even though I know it covers a range of actual test marks.

@Juliette20 but you need GCSE maths to be able to do subsequent qualifications so yes, it is crucial. I’m not actually referring to what you learn in the maths class but you need the qualification. Equally you need GCSE English and science.

Ah but that's not the same, is it? I got a B in GCSE maths, I couldn't help a child struggling with maths past about year 8 now.