Any Maths teachers about?

[Bobblesock]

My son is currently in Year 10. Has moved between sets 1 and 2 (out of 6) since year 7. He has just achieved the highest score in his year in the Maths challenge. He's currently predicted a 7 maybe an 8 in his GCSE, but did better than those predicted 9s. What is it that's different about the maths in the challenge? Asking to get a sense of whether he's under achieving or has particular gaps or blocks. He seems to find statistics and geometry relatively straightforward and struggles with algebra - would that explain it? Thanks in advance.

My best guess is that he has some gaps in his understanding of algebra, or possibly something like negative numbers - if you know what you're doing with algebra but aren't secure on negatives then that can throw errors in very easily. Given the high IMC score, it might be well worth someone sitting down with him and trying to work out where the issues are, especially if he might want to continue with maths. The problem with gaps in maths is that you can often get by for a while without having understood something, by copying the pattern of similar problems, but then eventually you get to a point where it really matters. It would be better to find and fix now, than have everything come tumbling down at A-level.

DS quite regularly comes top in his year group in maths and further maths exams but rarely does well in the maths challenge. I think it suits some people more than others

The maths challenge is a very different style of question to GCSE papers, with lots of problem solving. The questions may suit someone whose strength is geometry as quite a few of the questions are geometry-based or puzzles with diagrams. Multiple choice might also help!

Sometimes the students who do best on the challenge are not the highest attaining academically and vice-versa.

What does he think though? Does he think he is perhaps slacking off in maths a bit and coasting by on natural ability? If he is struggling with algebra, how much effort has he put in to improve? It could be that there are easy gains to be made with a bit of independent work on his weak areas.

Thanks.

There definitely are some gaps- he had 2 terms without a permanent maths teacher and in some of that time was 'taught' by non specialist. I think he has coasted historically but is starting to talk about 'gettibg his head down'.in year 11'. Local sixth form offers statistics A level which he is considering, but it sounds like it's worth trying to revisit some areas to see if he's developed misconceptions or just not covered the work, then he might consider Maths.

Thanks for the advice and if you're teachers in England, Happy Half term....

There are quite a lot of numerical puzzles in the maths challenge, which tend to suit kids who were high achieving in primary school but who haven't quite managed to replicate this success in the more challenging secondary syllabus.

Also, the maths challenge is multiple choice.....

That's strange that the high achieving in secondary pupils can't do as well in the primary style questions. I know it's multiple choice, but this seems like more than a chance thing - to have the highest score in his year in something. I was just asking for advice on how to support him going forward and a bit of insight from the specialists.

The difference is that to do well on the GCSE you need to have learned all the material pretty well , whereas on the maths challenge it testing how well you can apply maths skills to different / unusual / interesting problems. The maths skills however are not than complex (not much beyond Pythagoras Theorem / area of circle type skills). That means that very able students who don't work very hard will still be able to do vey well in maths challenges as they won't be penalised by a lack of knowledge (In essence they will be able to figure stuff out). But will find the normal GCSE trickier, as they won't have the tools required to tackle some of the questions, and they aren't the kind of things you can figure out.

The way to fix it is to find out the areas he isn't sure on , and practice them! As you said early on - he finds Algebra tricky - find out which parts and work on them! For must able students the rules of algebra make sense.

I find that students who do well in maths challenge tend to think about the problems differently - they look for what has to be solved and how they might find it, what possibilities there are, what patterns they can find in things, etc, and only then try to work out what maths need doing. They sometimes spot the more elegant, inteeresting, faster solutions as a result. Other students tend to look at a question and try to identify what bit of maths they have been taught that they are supposed to do, or how they might be able to solve something in a very long-winded, maybe brute-force, style answer, which can work but might take longer (I do that myself when I see some of the problems, knowing that they could potentially be solved with an algebraic method, for example, but then looking at the solutions and realising that there is a much simpler way).

I think the students who do well on and enjoy maths challenges are often the sort that do enjoy A-level, if they can fill in the missing gaps that are stopping them doing well on their GCSE papers., whereas people who do well on GCSE but don't necessarily enjoy the sort of speculation about methods that you have to do when you see a challenge question, might not enjoy carrying on with maths as much.

If a student isn't doing as well on GCSE exams as expected, it's worth trying out some practice papers and going through the mark scheme to work out why he is only getting 7s or 8s, to spot the weak areas, but also to spot things to do with exam technique - being able to remember all the different methods he has to do something like factoring, for example, or what possible topics there might be associated with triangles? Does he know how to properly simplify algebra? (I find a lot of pupils are not very confident with things like when they can cancel things from top and bottom of a fraction, or they forget how to square something in brackets, or they miss out putting brackets in altogether etc). Does he tend to do the question correctly, but lose marks on the actual calculations? Going through a past paper in detail and working out whether his mistakes are things like doing something mathematically wrong, or just not helpful for a particular question, fixing any mathemtical errors, and working on exam strategy if he just does random steps that aren't actually helpful - making a little plan of how to solve a multi-step problem first, for example, so that he knows what he needs to find and what he will do with it when he finishes that step.

DS always used to do brilliantly in the maths challenge and underperform in ordinary exams, because although he was great at maths he could be be lazy, didn't revise and thought he could work out how to do things from first principles in the exam room, which he obviously couldn't.

is starting to talk about 'getting his head down'.in year 11 why not now? Why not over summer? Why wait until year 11?

DS did maths and further maths A level. Got A stars in both. He would agree with Hot because he says there is a difference to doing maths and understanding maths. Children know to apply formulas for things like working out the area of a circle, but do they actually understand why this works? How it works? Both my children play with maths because they love it. They will watch videos on why Pythagoras works etc.

For GCSE stuff your DS needs to take a look at any paper he has done, look at the questions where he hasn't achieved full marks and look at why and then work at that.