GCSE Maths - can you pls tell me what this teacher's comment means

[NoHayDosSinTres]

WRT my DC's Maths GCSE revision can someone please explain the latter half of this comment from a teacher for me;

"He now needs to use the remaining time to focus in class and target level X questions whilst independently checking with the Edexcel mark schemes to compare methods.".

Thanks

He doesn't always focus and concentrate or put full effort in lessons...

Needs to revise independently - do past paper questions and self assess against the mark scheme?

Is there another meaning I've missed?

He could get a higher grade if he focussed and tackled the more complex questions ie some have several parts

It means that at this stage in the day he shouldn't waste time either puzzling over questions that are much too hard, or plodding through questions that are much too easy (you'll know which of those two scenarios are most likely to apply to your son!) He should sit down with his revision list, highlight the topics that he knows he understands but that he never gets full marks on, and focus on those questions.

The mark scheme bit is just to make sure that he's not wasting his time merrily getting a whole load of stuff wrong! He needs to check his own work to see a) that he's got the right answer, and b) he's written enough working to get all the marks.

Hope that helps (I'm a secondary maths teacher).

He needs to check the mark schemes and the methods on the mark scheme.

Not a teacher.

Does it actually say Level X or does it say e.g. level 6?

If it says level X then the teacher has used a template for the report and hasn't changed the X to a grade.

If it says Level 6 (say) then your DC needs to be finding questions in the middle of the higher tier paper and practicing them / finding the topics marked grade 6 in the revision guide and doing questions on them.

As above, he needs to check his answers against the mark scheme to see which methods he can use to answer the question. Maths is all about doing maths questions but also making sure they are right so either on a website (my son's school provide a paid for login) or checking the mark scheme for a paper.

He needs to challenge himself with the harder questions which could benefit him in the upcoming exams.

The Mark Schemes which I assume he has access to, my students have them loaded onto their class teams page, will have all the methods of doing a question. Some questions can be answered in a couple of different ways so reading through and understanding alternatives will enable them to possibly answers questions that can only be done in one way.

In class I will often show two different ways to answer a question, its a similar thing.

What everyone else says. Does it say a level? If it says X, then please raise that with the teacher (or rather, ask him to do so).

I tutor (MFL not maths) and I had a student a couple of years ago who was doing an untiered paper and was working at about grade 5; I advised them to focus on practice and strategies for questions 2 and 3 on the papers (they are the same structure always) rather than worrying too much about question 5 (as that is aimed at students who will get an 8 or 9) as they would gain more marks that way (which might life them a grade).

This is kind of assuming your DS is in a similar position - ie mid-table and looking to bump up to a 6 or 7. Apologies if I have got that wrong.

If you are wondering about the Edexcel mark schemes - these are accessible to everyone, and can be useful. In my subject the examiner reports, which give examples of things candidates did wrong in the past paper in question, can be incredibly useful to flag up what not to do.

OP, Edexcel is the exam board that your son's school will be using. Here is a link to their past papers and the mark scheme for each one: revisionmaths.com/gcse-maths/gcse-maths-past-papers/edexcel-gcse-maths-past-papers

The mark schemes explain how each question is marked, so can give your child an insight into why they are not getting full marks.

In maths it is possible to get the right answer to a problem but lose marks for not showing each step of the working.

As everyone else has said!
But also benefits in looking at the mark scheme in seeing just how many points are awarded for initial steps. I work with someone who is hoping to pass, and she was quite surprised when we went through one of her papers against hte mark scheme, just how many marks she was able to get even on questions that she really didn't understand at all! (I am not sure this is a great thing in terms of the integrity of the exam and what a grade 4 actually means, but it's definitely worth knonwing).

Also some very common things that don't get part marks are spelled out. Like finding percents of a number; initial steps that say things like 10%=8 don't necessarily get marks, because you haven't shown that you divided by 10 to get it. (If you get the final answer right, that's fine, but it doesn't count for part marks if you don't, on at least one of the boards).
So learning things like that is useful, along with things like how to set your work out clearly - often one final mark for actually stating an answer to a question "yes he has enough money" or whatever.

So loads to learn from mark schemes and examiner reports, far more than just the 'did I get the right answer'. It's really helpful to know how many marks there are and what they are far. Students often say 'oh I'd have got 2 out of 3 on that I'm sure, I was close' - but not close in the way that would get marks. Other times, they might put something down to start, having no real idea how to continue, and that would get them an extra mark. The more you understand how the mark schemes are, the more you maximise your chances.

For targeting work at different grades, many revision sites have it split into categories for each topic, so you can literally google things like "linear equations grade 5 gcse questions" and have suitable things come up.

Thanks for all the comments. It doesn’t say X, i just left his grade out. He’s actually predicted a 9, That said, he needs to work to get that grade. He wasn’t sure what this feedback meant and TBH he doesn’t know anything about checking against the exam board etc.

In the case of aiming for Grade 9, then it is probably useful to search specifically for questions targeted at Grade 8/9, especially if he is in a set where not everyone in necessarily working at that level. There may only be a few of the really difficult questions on each paper, and if he's confident on the easier questions, then Grade 9 style questions are a good place to target his revision so that he gets enough practice at it - they are often different to lower grade questions, in that they might combine several topics in one, not give hints in the form of 'part' questions that tell you what steps to do, can be somewhat abstract (solving things in terms of x/y rather than numbers), and can be quite formal in their wording. Even if he is very confident on the actual material when asked directly to do it, he might not be used to having to figure out himself how to apply it to particular questions and how to 'solve a puzzle' using whatever maths techniques he has. It's quite a different style of revision that just learning how to do the maths, that people aiming for slightly lower grades might need to do.

Going over all the different methods available in the mark scheme and comparing them might help him understand more deeply how different looking methods might be the same, or how to come up with faster ways of doing something. Or if he has made an attempt at a question, but didn't get all the way - can he work out where he went wrong, what mistakes he made, whether his method would have got to the correct answer in the end without those mistakes, or was there something fundamentally wrong that he was doing? (Sometimes students attempt a different method, but end up getting something wrong in how they do a particular step - looking at the mark scheme might just give them a totally different, correct, way of doing the question, but unless they actually go through what they tried to do and find their mistake, they may continue to repeat that mistake in other situations).

Focus in class: still not fully focused and working to potential despite being so close to the exam.

Do more practice questions, especially the second half of the paper. There is no such thing as grade 9 topics. Any topics/questions can be made extremely difficult in themselves or by combining a number of topics together.

Your DC might not be showing enough working/using ineffective methods hence the comment about looking at methods in MS. Also, they might be missing key steps in a question and not gaining full marks because of that.

If he's unsure about where he is in terms of revision, advise him to speak to his teacher asap rather than muddling his way through and second guessing instructions.

I agree with all the posts above but if he's predicted good grades, able to get there but just struggling with how, this is exactly the sort of thing a teacher can help with.

It’s well worth looking at the mark schemes- that was the only thing that brought home to DS that he needs to show every step of his working rather than doing it on his head.