Yearly warning not to take A-level maths with less than a 7 at GCSE

[noblegiraffe]

GCSE results day and therefore A-level sign-up day is coming.

So with that in mind I just thought I'd post the table of conversions from GCSE to A-level results for maths to show that there is a strong correlation. This is because A-level Maths basically starts with a quick review of grade 8/9 GCSE algebra content and then gets more difficult. Students starting with a 7 will have to work very hard to keep up, students with a 6 often flounder.

There are sixth forms and colleges that will accept students with a 6 onto A-level maths, but from many years of experience, this is not a good experience for the student. Many will drop out and switch courses early on (and therefore not appear in the results table), but some will struggle on for 2 years and then come out with a grade that really doesn't help them with university applications.

If you take A-level maths with a 6, even if you manage to complete the course (and a lot won't), about three quarters will get a D or below, with E the most common grade.

This data is from 2019 because obviously more recent data has been screwed up by covid.

If your child is keen to do maths, but gets a 6, please consider Core Maths which is designed to be taken alongside 3 A-levels and provides supportive maths content for A-level sciences and social sciences (e.g. psychology, geography).

If your child is going to do A-level maths (particularly if they are on a 7 but also 8/9), check that they have done summer bridging work so they hit the ground running in September.

@Araminta1003 yup, it's London. And yes 100% I don't believe it's anything to do with income or even previous education tbh although that does make a huge impact obv. Kids of African, polish, middle east, South Asian etc descents tend to do extremely well even if they're living in abject poverty in poor housing and parents largely absent due to working long hour. And that's largely because they all come from a culture where it's shameful to do badly in school, sen or not. That's not the case for a lot of the white working class, afro Carribbean kids or travellers which statistically perform the worst even if they have parents that are familiar with the school system here and are largely not 1st generation immigrants.
There is a certain drive that being a 1st gen immigrant gives too and most want to live in London when they move here. Their drive is contagious as well so when you stick them all into one super selective 6th form it's like a bunch of eager energiser bunnies. It just proves that it's really not about income but expectations and culture at home or in your community. Some kids are lucky enough to go to a school that creates that community of high expectations for them, when it doesn't exist at home, others don't.

Yes. It sounds as though if they were interested in benefit to pupils rather than high A* percentages, they’d run two FM options - one for the ones who were aiming for STEP, olympiads etc and another for those who just want to do FM merely to - novel educational concept coming up! - learn further maths.

(I’m sure the heavy sarcasm there is obvious, and the OP and other maths teachers posting on this thread don’t have that attitude to learning!)

Well it doesn’t help that the university system in this country seems to now tell those in superselective cohorts that their achievements are some how lesser, just because others around them do so well. I always remind my DC where they sit nationally and every A star and 9 they got is praised to the roof. They put the blood and sweat into those grades just like any other kid. No top grades grow on trees, not even in the most selective private schools.

What is noticeable in the grammar schools my DC attended (from the immigrant cohort primarily, which is the dominant cohort) is how grateful and proud they are of their DC to be there and how much effort went into it. None of the let’s be embarrassed about elitism. Personally, I do wonder though, if it would have been much easier for my DC to go to a local comprehensive and coast at the top level and be told how wonderful they are. Rather than having to keep up with some of these incredibly bright and very hard working kids. I am going to assume it is quite similar in the selective private schools, the keeping up factor and I suspect the social and extracurricular pressure is even stronger.

I agree and disagree with this tbh. It is incredibly difficult to recruit good quality teachers in a crap comp. Even in a good comp tbh. It is not difficult to recruit for a grammar school. Every teacher wants a class full of eager, well behaved kids with home support.
Whether people agree with it or not, to achieve a string of 9s at a comp where that's not the norm, and there's lots of social and behaviour issues, IS more impressive than a string of 9s from a school full of very clever kids who receive great teaching and support each other, aren't getting called neeks for trying so hard, and aren't having to teach themselves at home because most people in their top set class is on course for a 4 and sitting foundation papers (yes this is very real in most schools- Mumsnet isn't reality).
That doesn't mean the 9s achieved in a grammar weren't hard fought with blood sweat and tears and many late nights. But I'm grateful there's an acknowledgement that your school environment does make it harder or easier for you to achieve that.
Stats also show that private school kids often struggle the most at uni. They work hard but they're also used to a lot of small group support and hand holding so their A's may not necessarily mean the same thing in terms of quality of work, as an A or A* achieved by a state school kid who's had to do a lot of independent work in a class of 28.

Completely agree with this.

Me too. A girl found here went to dubious comp, dad in prison, overcrowded flat. She got all 9s. Just incredible really.

Comps usually have lower progress 8 for high attainers than selective, often considerably lower. This is why unis need to look at school context.

Yes, and it doesn't mean the grammar or private school kids aren't worthy of a place or didn't work hard or should enrol at a crappy comp instead to give them better chances. There's hundreds of thousands of previously high attaining kids that don't even pass in a lot of comps, that's not a gamble I would be making if I had a smart kid with a grammar place. Plus there's more to education than just results and the trauma a lot of kids have from being smart in a crappy comp is undeniable.
To be able to achieve grade 9s in a school with a 20-40% pass rate is an incredible feat of self motivation and drive. And it's about grammar schools either. Unis judge contextual offers based on how well the school you went to performed, not the type of state school it is and a lot of leafy comps are judged the same as grammars because they get well above average results. It just so happens grammars always perform well which indicates its an academically supportive environment.
Contextual offers looks at various things though so if you were on FSM or care experienced but in a grammar or even a private school, you could still get a contextual offer, it's not just the school that's looked at.

Yes, but DD knows a girl who had cancer at grammar school and did very well despite that and DS knows a child who went to a private school, whose mum died and dad committed suicide so the school they attend is only part of the picture, always.

Unis do not have time to look at children’s personal circumstances in full. Having parents who divorce, bad health, all sorts of trauma is far more relevant than some middle class trauma of being around lower attaining children. If teaching is terrible or sporadic, of course it should be rewarded. However, there are plenty o lower attaining schools were middle class bright kids actually get celebrated and get loads of extra attention and sometimes end up doing better than in a high pressured environment where they are just another kid like that. A lot of this will boil down to the personality of the child and we cannot expect unis to be able to second guess that. So I maintain, family circumstances and level of education of parents and books at home are far more relevant to outcome than the school.

This is daft advice, I got a B (equivalent of a 6 I guess) at GCSE and also got a B at A level. My friend who had a tutor for GCSE got an A at GCSE, E at A level. Another girl who had millions of A GCSEs under her belt had a nervous breakdown after she got a C in the end of first year exam for pure maths and switched to something easier 😂

So I maintain, family circumstances and level of education of parents and books at home are far more relevant to outcome than the school.

if that is the case however, why do people put so much stock into getting into the 'right' school be it private, grammar, or the 'right' comp. You ideally need home and school.

When did you get your B? If you got it in the 90s, for example, it is the equivalent of a grade 7 now.

That's what I said at the end of my last message. You can get contextual offers even from a grammar of private. School is not the whole picture.

Honestly I'm not sure what your point is. I don't think you quite imagine the type of school I'm talking about when I say trauma from school. It's certainly not a school any middle class child would end up in. There's kids without a teacher for their full GCSE course, without heating, with leaky roofs, with gangs and daily violence being the norm. 20% pass rates. These are not rare. And to achieve a string of grade 9s in that setting is incredible and not on par to achieving it at a grammar.
Your school has to be very very low attaining across the board to get a contextual offer. Most contextual offers are based on personal circumstances. And it is no secret that life chances are decided in utero, however school is the number 1 thing that can go someway into levelling chances of success. Grammar school places used to be called golden tickets for a reason. There's a reason people pay thousands a year in stamp duty to move into the right catchment. If it didn't make an huge difference, people wouldn't do it.

Yeah 1998. My school was shit, refused to let anyone enter for the higher tier paper 🙄

Well then your result does not contradict the advice in the OP then! It is consistent with it!

Yup exactly. My DDs friend got a 7 in maths last year and has just got an E in her end of Y12 mock 😬

@noblegiraffe I was just looking at your table. It's interesting that the % getting A and A star from a grade 5 is actually quite high compared to grade 6 and 7. Do you think that's because some kids will struggle with the GCSE maths content but thrive in something like algebra which A Levels have a lot of? Or they find less subjects easier than a whole GCSE load? I'm curious. Couldn't imagine a grade 5 kid getting an A or A. I know it's a tiny % but it's quite high still.

@Foxesandsquirrels - we do not have schools like that in London. The local school near me that people “shun” has a combined GCSE English and Maths pass rate of 68%, individually more like 77% English and 73% Maths. Every single child who ends up there from a good home then has the chance to change at Sixth Form anyway to all of the selective Sixth Forms all over London. The main issue we are now experiencing is people tutoring for GCSE because Sixth Forms are so selective. And tutoring costs a lot of money. It is the Sixth Forms that should be doing the contextualising. Far too late by university level.

However, unless the politicians are willing to fund summer schools and tutoring catch up during Sixth Forms for kids who got a 5 or 6 in Maths because of their circumstances, so that they can then access Maths A level and higher paid careers and STEM, none of these discussions are relevant. It is just a waste of time.

6th forms do contextualise. Tons of the selective ones prioritise FSM, looked after or previously looked after, PP kids and kids local low attaining partner schools as a 1st priority after EHCPs. Look up the admissions criteria for Harris Westminster, LAET, Brampton Manor etc etc.
And honestly, I'm not sure what to say as to your London comment. London is not the whole of the country and London has plenty of schools like the ones I've described, 2 of our local ones are like this and my daughter briefly went to one. They just had a 28% pass rate at one and 40% at the other. It's a record year for the second- they've never had higher than 35% before outsife of COVID! Both regularly have gangs outside and huge problems with county lines. Just because it's not on your doorstep, doesn't mean it doesn't exist and tbh that's not my point. The point is, no one in the school you describe would get a contextual offer based on their school, because that's not a low attaining school! It's not just about the type.

I’m not the OP (whose views I will defer to) but you are talking about roughly 5% of fewer than 300 people, i.e 15 human beings. This is too few people for us to be able to draw statistically relevant conclusions. Remember also: the table doesn’t include those who dropped out along the way!

It is true that people who are good at algebra thrive at maths A-level, but it is very rare indeed for someone to be good at algebra and to have a 5 at GCSE maths.

No no I get it completely. Why do you say that about algebra? Is there not a lot of algebra at GCSE?

I think it would be unusual for a school to accept someone with a five, so I'd hazard a guess that a fair number of those who are allowed, are allowed because the school knows there were circumstances that meant they got a 5, but we're capable of getting much higher.