Y11 GCSE maths grade 5

[MaffsMover]

Is it really possible/probable for a child to get a grade 5 in their year 11 mocks and get a 6 or more in the actual exams? DD has been getting grade 4 for what seems like for ever but it but has a good work plan going on which has obviously helped her. She is predicted a 7 or 8 but I’ve no idea why or how! She is a hard worker and needs the 6 to get into the sixth form of choice, even though she’ll be doing humanities subjects.

Her teachers say it’s possible, her tutor says is possible, but is it really? I just need to know, to know if I need to sell the back up plan a bit!

Yes, it is. I've known kids go up 1, 2 or even 3 grades between the mock and the real thing. If her teachers have confidence in her that's a good sign. Fingers crossed!

For sure it's possible. What is she doing to improve her grade? The best thing to do is past papers and exam-style questions, then look at the mark scheme to see where she went wrong and work on improving that.

She will be doing higher paper (as 5 is the max in F) so she will find that one challenge is that she will not be able to access a lot of it. There are techniques here too – marks can be picked up for working and method even if the full answer is not there, so make sure she is not missing out questions if she cannot fully do them. To give an idea, for AQA in 2024 the boundary for a 6 on the H paper was 54%, so you might be looking at exams where you can only do just over half the questions.

Oh, lovely. That’s a relief. I did think it seemed a bit of a tall order but maybe she’ll be ok. She is doing past papers and she has the GCP book but it seems to be the past papers that have really helped.

Yes, definitely.

DD scared the wits out of me in Nov mocks in maths. Tutor in place by end of November and between her and the maths teacher she went up 2 grades by the retake 5 weeks later and nobody is considering Foundation anymore.

Teacher had a student go from a 2 to a 7 between November and June last year, so I am hoping he can work similar-ish magic this year.

My experience of DD1 last year was that maths was the hardest one to improve. In her cohort most people eneded up getting the same as Nov mocks or one grade higher. Other subjects saw bigger leaps. These were all engaged children who worked hard for Nov mocks. I assume
bigger leaps would be possible if little work was done for mocks.

I think it depends on how much work was actually done for the mocks; I agree with a PP that maths is probably one of the hardest to improve.

Were the mocks done on the foundation or higher paper?

It's absolutely possible. My DC2 got 4 and 5 in his respective mocks, worked his ass of and got a 7. 4s in Chemistry and Physics mocks, got 7 and 6.

Did she sit the higher paper in her mocks?

How close to the grade boundary was she? If she was closer to a 5 than a 6 then obviously it's more difficult. Going up half a grade is easier than going up a full grade.

If she has a tutor that's great, she also needs to be fully engaging in lessons and homework. She needs to actively identify areas to work on by looking at her mocks or doing past papers and then work on them - watch a video/ work through some examples, then do some questions AND MARK THEM. If she gets some wrong, she needs to figure out why, and then do more questions to check she now gets it.

If she wants a grade 6, she needs to be getting most of her marks from the first half of the paper. There is no point in her trying to learn solving complicated vector proofs if she can't do a cumulative frequency graph. She should be answering all questions 'up to the staples in the middle' and then looking for the odd mark/question after that but expect not to do much of the second half of the paper.

This website is good as it gives a rough grade level for each topic so she can make sure she is working on the right level of maths - she should aim for confidence on grade 4,5,6 stuff and then maybe get her tutor to pick out some 'easy wins' from the grade 7 stuff.
https://www.mathsgenie.co.uk/gcse.php

Yes, she’s doing the higher paper. I’ve no idea how close she was to the grade boundary as the teachers haven’t got back to me.

The tutor service have helped her get from a 4 to a 5, I think she just needs to keep on doing what she’s doing. She has always been engaged in lessons and homework so she can’t do any more with that.

I just wondered how realistic it was she would go up grade by keeping on keeping on, and it seems not very likely! But that’s fine, the back up plans for 6th form are good too.

I will tell her that she needs to work up to the staples and then have a stab at the rest.

I hate GCSEs!

Yes, it’s entirely possible. DS never got above a 5 in exams for maths but got a 6 in the actual GCSE. He got a lot of 4s in end of unit tests and a far few 5s.

He did a lot of past paper practice for GCSE. Once he’d covered the entire course, it was far easier to just tackle the entire papers. He did about 15 minutes every day during his GCSE revision which spanned a couple of months.

Yes, I think the course is covered now, although she does have gaps in her knowledge, but hopefully, as Noble suggests, the gaps are post staples.

I am glad she’s applied for a range of sixth form options though.

Oh, she did it, got the 6! She got into the sixth form of choice and never wants to do maths again.

It was a lot of hard work. She put in hours of work a week on her maths for the whole year before the exam. I’ve no idea how anyone thought she would manage to get the predicted grade-but thankfully she didn’t need to!