Is anyone doing Core Maths?

[Shimy]

I already asked this within another thread but thought a new thread might receive more attention.
DS is planning on sitting Core Maths alongside his 3 A’levels. School do not offer it, so will not offer lessons etc but are happy to arrange for him to sit the exam. As he will be self studying, I’m wondering whether there are any resources anyone can recommend or an online tutoring site for Core Maths? We will get private tutoring if needed, but would like to know what’s available first.

Hi, there are revision textbooks on Amazon but not much else as it is a relatively new course. If you look on the AQA site for level 3 mathematical studies you can find some past papers.

My son did it at school last year along with his 3 A levels in yr12. He did not enjoy but plodded on and persevered with it as it was 'not proper maths'. Depending on the modules the school picked it was a lot of inflation and mortgage rate questions, plus the ambiguity in some of the questions was staggering. There was one on how many strawberries were served at Wimbledon with you filling in all the missing info!

Good luck to your son.

One post at last . Thanks for sharing this information. It’s actually made me quite nervous now as DS is planning to self study for it, with some private tutoring but what you’ve said is making me question it.

I would get your DS to have a look at some past papers and see what he thinks. Sections of it my DS did enjoy, but others he hated. He is not a wordy person and dislikes maths where you have to read a paragraph and make up your own equations. He prefers short and succint Best of luck for your DS.

@grauduroi Can ask what your DS obtained in GCSE Maths? Just trying to gauge whether DS has a grade high enough as a baseline.

I'm a Maths teacher and I've been teaching the Core Maths OCR qualification for the past three years - feel free to PM me for more info.
There is a reasonable amount of variation between the different courses available, but a fundamental part of the course is problem-solving. All of the questions are in context - to a far greater extent than the 'real life maths' questions that they'll encounter at GCSE.
As a rough rule of thumb, I would say that a student's GCSE grade would normally match up with what they'd be expecting to achieve in Core Maths.
E.g. grade 7/8/9 - A
Grade 6 - B
Grade 5 - C/B
Grade 4 - C

@ClassicHummus this is very useful information, exactly what I’m after. I will PM.

Got an 8 and had teacher assessed at A for last year's exams.