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.

DS got a 7 in maths and 6 in FM .
He's down for A level maths and FM but I'm not sure he'll be doing both now.
Teacher is willing to let him try FM but as it's a 4th a level I'm not sure it's worth it?

Yeah this has been the case even when I was at school. I breezed through GCSe maths. I found it ridiculously easy and got an A* but boy was in for a shock at a-level. It was crazily hard. Now admittedly I did the statistics paper (for the life of me I have idea!) but the step up from GCse to A-level was a mountain. I missed an A by 5 marks. Honestly unless you get a 9 at GCSe (8 at a push if you love maths) would seriously advise against doing it any further. I have advised against my own children doing it as I don’t think they like it enough to do it .

Further maths GCSE a much more similar to maths A-level content wise than regular maths GCSE. To the extent that someone took further maths GCSE and did not enjoy it or worked hard at it but really struggled, then that would raise a question for me as to whether they were really suited to maths A-level. But if they quite liked it but didn’t take it too seriously because it was taught at lunchtime etc, I wouldn’t be worried.

Further maths GCSE is like the start of pure maths and much more algebraic than regular maths GCSE.

We will struggle for a 4th. I have asked my sister (also a maths teacher) and she has said he would probably struggle.

I'll sit down with him later. (He has autism to just add to the situation)

My kid got a nine at GCSE. She really struggled at A-level and only with tutoring managed to get an A grade. She was not one of those kids for whom maths comes easily.

So I recommend caution.

My DS has got a 7 in the year 10 mock last term so room for improvement before the actual exam next year??
He's also got put into the further maths group....

He wants to do computing so needs maths?

Is that looking good enough to consider the A level? Assuming he makes a step up to 8 from year 10?

I got a B at GCSE and was in the 97% percentile in the country for an A at A level.

I personally found harder maths easier and you do get those sort

It can happen - dd was in one of the two middle sets (albeit at a GS) for gcse but got better as it became more mathematics and less arithmetic.
Also I'm not sure by year 10 mocks they'll have done many past papers and got their exam technique in order ... read the rubric and show your working for instance!

Hypothetically, if only students with grade 9 took A level maths, do they not issue results on a bell curve? So say the top 5% get A*, next 10% get A, next slice get a B etc etc.
Would that not mean all those grade 9 GCSE students would end up getting A,A,B,C,D,E because they couldn’t only give out A, A s.
Is it not an advantage to have a wider range of students taking GCSE as someone has to be in the bottom of the bell curve and get the lower marks - otherwise top candidates get them.
I’m interested in how it works.
I thought they standardise all the results incase a paper is harder one year, and give the marks to a certain percentage of candidates.

Pretty sure it doesn't really work like that. If you look at the grades achieved for FM, it gets by far the highest proportion of A stars and As versus other subjects. That's because they take into account somehow that nearly all the students taking it are very able mathematicians. Broadly, the 'hardest' subjects which get more able students taking them get more higher grades and fewer lower ones.

Results are on a bell curve, but there are different bell curves for different subjects at A-level because for some subjects more able people take the subject. Exam boards at Alevel use data they have for each student (how they performed at GCSE) to take into account the ability of the cohort doing each subject and do a bell curve accordingly. So if very able people do maths A-level, the bell curve will be around high grades compared to subjects which have weaker cohorts (psychology).

Same results and plans for my DD. She seems to just 'get' maths, certainly in a way I never did.

My sister (the aforementioned maths teacher) will admit that it wasn't until she got to degree level that she really had to work at it.

If your school has the option, I’d highly recommend your DC doing Ad Maths alongside their GCSE Maths. Mine did this after being advised to do so. He got a 9 in GCSE, an A in Ad Maths, and honestly he found year 12, year 1 of maths A ‘level a breeze as they’d covered a lot in Ad Maths.

He just got an A in his maths A’ level.

I can't remember which exam board this was but a few years ago when I was researching core maths for my older daughter one of the websites said if you've achieved a '5' at GCSE you should consider A-level Math. You would hope students are being better advised by their schools.

Well, having spoken with him and my sister he is still absolutely determined to do FM. She has told him he will absolutely need to work his socks off, so I think he knows what he is up against. To be fair for him he has said right from the start that he wanted to do FM. Mitigating circumstances are: he was 3 marks of an 8, he didn't actually do that much work, and whilst he was in the top set he was on the lower pathway so it was much more of a mixed group.

Hopefully by the end of tomorrow we will know if it is eSports or Geography as the 3rd subject.

We’re still using the traditional letter grades in Wales.

Ds state school have advised that only those who took (and passed) Additional Maths ought to consider Further Maths A level and to take Maths A level they should have passed their GCSE with an A grade.

Ds got an A* in his maths and a distinction in Additional Maths and can’t wait to start A levels in Maths, Further Maths and Physics. He definitely doesn’t get it from me! 🤣

Yes, it's worth getting it checked. Dd got a 7 for physics last year. We weren't going to apply for it to be checked but her physics teacher phoned to suggest she get it checked, so we did and it went up to an 8.

We're a year behind but my daughter is expecting to get an 8 in maths I think. She is used to sailing (Grammar School can do a lot with minimal effort and they don't do regular maths homework/self quizzing like neighbouring schools)

She's started thinking about A levels and wants to do chemistry and physics. She has it in her head "you have to do maths if you do physics" but I'm a bit worried if she's working at a 7 now/predicted 8 and isn't in love with it whether it's enough.

Her other idea is physics chemistry psychology but do you "need" maths to do physics?

Her main aim currently is to aim for A grades and go to a "good" uni (I wish the grammar school didn't funnel them this way) rather than which subject...

Lots of students do maths because they need it rather than love it. It is the most popular A-level!

Loving it isn’t necessary. Actually putting the work in, even if you don’t love it, is.

We recommend an hour of work outside of lessons for every hour spent in lessons and it takes Y12 a long time to grasp that we actually mean it.

Sixth form maths is very different to GCSE. At GCSE they probably had half an hour homework a week that they could get away with half-arsing. Large amounts of lesson time were devoted to working through exercises. Months of Y11 were devoted to revision.

In sixth form lessons are about teaching content. Most of the ‘practising’ happens outside of lessons. Teaching of new content happens right up till the exams, there is very little time for revision, which also happens outside of lessons.

Kids who think they did well at GCSE with very little revision don’t realise they actually did loads of revision, it was just in lesson time. They think they can apply the same lack of effort and sail through sixth form then come unstuck around January of Y12 when they get Us in their exams. When asked how much work they do outside of lessons they’ll say ‘I do the homework’ and not realise that is why they have failed.

Yes that's kind of what I was worried about - that she'd got used to coasting! I think psychology would be an "easier" route to a high grade and she's interested but she doesn't want to come unstuck not choosing maths if "everyone" does it with physics. I've told her she'd need to put the work in - she does do work but it's very much last minute motivated/due to homework set than any self motivation at all.

Her favourite subject is chemistry and she enjoys the calculations side of this (and astronomy)..

Its so hard to advise - not that I'm claiming to know much at all - (and she has another year but she's working towards it as her friends are manky getting results now). She doesn't have career plans yet.

Can you do physics without maths?

A level Physics will be harder without maths, and if she wanted to take it beyond that then even harder, not sure if most physics degrees at good unis require it but I'd have thought so.
Her favourite subject is chemistry and she enjoys the calculations side of this (and astronomy)..

Never mind the physics, if she's likely to be interested longer term in some of the mathsy areas of chemistry then she should definitely do maths. (I write chemistry software, there's huge ongoing growth in computational methods - much more fun than lab work imo)

That's really helpful thankyou. She'd really like psychology too. It's hard limiting it to 3 isn't it?!

Yes - hopefully a grammar if she gets good GCSEs they'll let her start 4. But she may have somewhat refined her ideas on what she might like to do at degree level and beyond a year hence when she has to decide.

I'd agree with this but I'd also add in Chemistry. Moving up to A level is a shocker!