Maths A level dilemma - advice needed

[AMatterOfInfiniteHope]

Looking for some advice. In previous years I’ve seen posts about only taking a level maths if you’re one of the top students.

DD really not sure what A Levels to take. Around the time of the time of the GCSE’s she started to think she’d like to take maths A level. She’s not been keen before.

She started secondary school with a target/predicted grade of a 4, but has worked incredibly hard and her teacher in year 11 has said she should be aiming for a 7 or 8. Mock exams were usually a 7 or 8. I still think there’s a chance she’ll come out with a 6; she thinks the exams were very hard but reckons no one else did, so also thinks it might be a 6. ( I will advise against maths if that’s the case).

She was very cross with herself for not answering all the questions on one of the papers and I have a theory that she only wants to do A level so she can prove to herself (and others) that she can do it. When she was in KS3 she was convinced her lower set classes (she was in the lowest sets at first) had already been written off and she was upset at the injustice of it all. Her teacher thinks she has the mindset for the A level because she works so hard. I’m not so sure.

If she loves it and enjoys working through maths questions then I definitely wouldn't write it off for her, see how she gets on next week!

DS majorly regrets taking Maths. It was one of his lowest grades at GCSEs being a 6 - most of his grades were 8s and 7s. He hesitated and even got advice from the Head of Maths who said if he put in the work, he could do ok. However, even with a private tutor for year 13, he only got an E for A level. Disappointing really but it clearly wasn’t his strong point. He thought it would help further his career but to be honest, it would have been much better him doing a subject he actually enjoyed. I think it depends on their capability and enthusiasm for it.

@AMatterOfInfiniteHope you have had lots of good advice on here from noblegiraffe and others. While for sure it is possible to gain a high grade in maths A level from a 6, it is certainly not typical. And yes, a hard-worked-for grade 7 is also a less hopeful predictor than a 7 achieved despite lack of work or poor teaching.

You say she may do linguistics with a language – is she intending to take MFL at A level? I would advise it with this plan.

@clary yes the advice has been great from all. Will definitely encourage her to make decision based on grades next week. She’s very much a glass half empty type so who knows how it will go.

she’s thinking of taking Spanish, as long as grade is high enough. Also English but not sure about 3rd choice. Also wants to do the EPQ.

Yes I would advise at least a grade 7 to continue with an MFL as a lower grade suggests the essential basics may not be secure. All the best with her decision.

Does she have any idea what degree courses she's interested in/what career she wants to do? Maths the most popular a-level at my DC's school and you have to have an 8 or a 9 at GCSE in order to do it.

My eldest (now at uni) did it. He got a 9 at GCSE and an Astar in maths a-level in the end, but it was pretty tough going at times! Maths is a good facilitating subject for many degree courses, but I really wouldn't recommend doing it unless you enjoy it and are naturally pretty good at it!

If she's leaning towards humanities or languages, better to focus on subjects that complement each other and she'll have a great time doing.

DC got 7 in GCSE mock and 6 in real thing. V certain he wanted to do A level. Struggling in mocks year 12. Teacher is predicting him a strong grade and says he is doing well in lessons but something is wrong in exams. He has extra classes from September. His tutor says the same. Unfortunately he is not doing 4 so cannot drop it. I think starting with 4 would be the best bet. DS likes maths but if he ends up with a much lower grade than other two will be a pain for him..

One if my dc is not especially academic and only got a D in maths as a 4th A level, but has found the stuff she learned in A level maths has been enormously useful in university level study, and later in employment.

https://sites.google.com/view/tlmaths/home/gcse-to-a-level-maths-bridging-the-gap
https://amsp.org.uk/teachers/11-16-maths/transition-to-level-3-maths/essential-skills/
The recent UKMT intermediate maths challenge papers have video solutions and investigations, which can be more helpful for developing skill than just a written solution: https://ukmt.org.uk/competition-papers/jsf/jet-engine:free-past-papers/tax/challenge-type:70/

That is fantastic. Well done to him!

Students who get a 6 at GCSE generally either drop out or get an E/D grade. If they are VERY committed, higher grades are not impossible, but quite unlikely.

That being stated, if you want to do science/engineering, a D grade in maths is better than a B grade in sociology.

@Boggyjothank you! I’m extremely proud of him especially now reading these stats which is will admit I was blissfully unaware of when he started his Alevels two years ago! Something clicked for him at 16 with maths- a late bloomer!

DS1 got a 7 in maths and a B at A level. But had a tutor for the last several months. It was tough going, and almost to the detriment of his other subjects.

I'm old and got an A at GCSE maths. Took it at A level and really struggled. I do have a 'maths brain' but ye gods it was HARD and it was my lowest grade in the end.

She needs to not only be good at Maths, but also 'get it' and WANT to do well at a subject she may find overwhelmingly challenging for a full 2 years.

I would ask her current school about how suitable she is for taking maths at A-level. My daughter “only” got an 8 at GCSE but she loved it and her head of maths encouraged her to also take further maths. At other sixth forms she looked at she was told she wouldn’t be allowed to take further maths without a grade 9.

What has happened is that my daughter is more aligned with the algebraic and more abstract sides to maths that you don’t necessarily come across at GCSE. She is absolutely flying and is predicted A stars in both. Thank goodness her teacher had her back as she would have been totally put off taking FM based on the negativity from other colleges.

If a teacher thinks she has natural ability and she gets a 7 then I think she should totally go for it if it’s a subject she loves.

My ds got a 7 at GCSE and an A at A-level.

But there were several things.

1. He put absolutely no work into his GCSEs (as shown when I asked at A-level what was the most useful way to revise for him and he said he'd never revised before. Grr!)
2. He was getting reliably Es and occasional Ds through the course through to his February mocks when we got him to put in work.

His older sister tutored him, doing 2-3 hours a week. That will probably cost you around £120-£180 per week if you don't have an obliging older sister.
For those weeks he did one session with her on a subject and then she'd set him a paper to do and then do another session going through the paper, showing how he could have scored more and then setting corrections for him.
So that was probably an extra 6-8 hours a week for him.
We also bribed him, which has limited success with him. A year later I still owe him a pizza night 🤣

She didn't just cover the subjects, it was also exam techniques - things like if he couldn't do part a, to check part b and c and do those, and where a short sentence gave a mark etc.

It took about 2 months before there was a minor improvement. He went from about 10-20% to low 30%age. He then stuck there for about another two months and suddenly shot up to 50-60% level - I remember the first time he got that dd came to check he'd not done it in front of the computer with the answers. When it came to the actual thing he got over 60% in two papers and over 80% - best ever in the other.
I wonder sometimes if he'd worked like that for longer if he'd have got to A*, but I don't think so, because I don't think he could have sustained it for much longer.

We got woken on results day by screams of delight - that was from his sister! Dd was so thrilled for him-she'd been confident of a C, and hopeful of a B. His reaction: "I'd have got the grades I needed if I hadn't done the third paper. I wasted two hours!" He was pleased though.
I suspect his maths teacher was rather put out, but she definitely could take no credit for it :)

Why I've written this down is I'm just trying to get across the effort it took to get to the grade. I can tell from your post that your dd is a hard worker - I think there's two questions for her: Is she prepared to put in a lot of effort, hire a tutor etc? And if she puts in huge amounts of effort, and doesn't get a top grade, is that going to be very demotivating?
I know for both ds and dd when he seemed to be plateauing about the 30% they were both questioning whether it was worth it. I think if he hadn't improved at that point they would have lost motivation.

Can she comfortably sit down and knock out the gcse level quadratic equations with algebra and the trigonometry / circle theory stuff?

Or is that a stretch?

A level builds on that.

You mention not being keen on probability. The maths course matters in that case. Are the modules stats, or mechanics? If it’s mechanics, you need to like physics if it’s stats, it’s probability.

All students now have to study both mechanics and stats for maths A-level.

@MargaretThursday that’s all very helpful. She worked so hard for gcse and most evenings (including Fridays!) would complete a handful of maths questions on top of her work for other subjects. However I’m aware that still might not get her a 7/8/9. Unfortunately no older sibling to help. She’s had a maths tutor and the tutor has said she’s very able and has taught herself so much. A level is such a step up isn’t it.

@RatherBeOnVacation she very much enjoys and does better at algebra. The other elements maybe not so much. She’s been a late bloomer in maths and some of the late blooming is down to maths becoming more abstract; it must be the way her brain works. I still remember the tears when I helped with fractions h/w in year 5 & 6! Can’t believe we’re now thinking about a level maths.

@ScaryM0nster she can do that and in fact often does (or at least did). My main concern is she isn’t that quick at working through problems. I think that was some of the problem on one of the gcse papers. She just couldn’t go fast enough and she had extra time.

Thanks for all the information and advice. I want to be ready for Thursday because I think she’s going to have to make some quick decisions when it come to enrolment. Unfortunately she’s not great a quick decisions.

@AMatterOfInfiniteHope
As a family I would say we can all do only maths, only my younger two rebelled and have gone into theatre! 🤣I certainly couldn't have managed anything else.

If she's had a tutor, then ask if they'll do a "step up" session for her before term starts and come and have a frank talk with you. There used to be a book I think Edexcel produced aimed at looking at the step up.
Tell them you really want to know their honest opinion of how good she is and whether she'll manage A-level. Don't ask for grades - no good tutor would make a prediction at that point, but ask for how much work and how will she cope with most of it.

Good news is if she likes algebra then A-levels are much more possible. Algebra is fun (until degree level where it really starts being an off-the-wall product of someone-else's imagination) and covers a lot of the course. If you'd said she hadn't really got that, then I'd say to back away slowly. But if she likes algebra, especially if she's had to think about it so can explain it, then it sounds like A-level may well be better than GCSE.

Problem with maths is hard work can only get you so far. When I did A-levels (I'm one of those annoying people who never had to be taught maths) I had a very hard working friend, who could run rings around lazy me in every other subject. Come to maths and she'd get upset that she'd put in acres of hard work and would do well, but not brilliantly. I used to tell her I'd done far more work than I had because she'd get so upset about her results.
If she's a naturally hard worker, you don't want her killing herself over maths when less hard work would get her great grades elsewhere, otoh maths is useful for lots of things, so if she can get a good grade.

Found the book for the bridge between GCSE and Alevel Head Start to A-Level Maths (with Online Edition): bridging the gap between GCSE and A-Level: Amazon.co.uk: CGP Books, CGP Books: 9781782947929: Books

Thank you, great idea to speak to maths tutor, don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that.

I think my main concern is that she’d have to put in a lot more work and possibly still not get that good a grade at a level.

My eldest DC was in the higher sets for maths at GCSE but did struggle with the work. My DH (who did maths A level many moons ago) spent ages with them going through questions and past papers, effectively tutoring them for free. DC amazed me on GCSE results day with an 8 in maths (just squeezed into the 8 by 2 or 3 marks). Following this result they made a last minute decision to take A level maths (college required a minimum of grade 7). There's no denying the A level was a lot of work for them and I did at times think another subject choice would have made life much easier. DH again helped a lot, I think without him we may have needed to look for a tutor to help with some of the concepts.
I had already seen the grade progression data so I knew it was less likely that DC would get the top A level grades, even from a GCSE 8. In the end last week we were delighted when they got a B. Looking at the total marks it was a very solid B and in fact college had predicted a B at start of year 12 as well so they got it spot on. They are going on to uni but to do a course completely unrelated to Maths, if they had wanted a maths-based course the B might have been a less good outcome for them so there is that to consider.

My friends' children who got 8s or 7s at GCSE ended up with B or C at A level so the grade progression stats held true for them as well.

My younger DC is getting GCSE results next week and also planning to do maths A level but is a completely different kettle of fish as they just "get" maths and always have done since being a small child. Predicted a 9 at GCSE and seems to do barely any work yet consistently achieves high marks in maths. Has never asked for or needed any help from DH. I expect their predicted A level grade will be an A or above.

Please be aware that a 9 at gcse maths is generally around 78%. That means you can get the top grade at gcse without understanding any of the harder material.

Your DC needs to be inherently good at maths to get the top grades at A level.

Yes definitely something to bear in mind too.

A level math at yr 12 is pitched at students achieving GCSE 8-9’s. If maths is not a strong subject, focus on A levels your DD is passionate about vs two years of very hard graft. Your DD will be competing against students already covering A level maths in GCSE further Maths.

The grade boundary for a 9 has been increasing steadily over the last few years, and you actually more than 90% for AQA which seems the most consistent year on year. Others hover between 80%-90%.

If your dd absolutely loves maths and is determined to do it at A level, then I wouldn't discourage her. If you're not convinced that she'll get a higher mark than a 6, she may benefit from spending a bit of time consolidating some of the transition topics.

The AMSP have resources for students exactly in her position.

amsp.org.uk/teachers/11-16-maths/transition-to-level-3-maths/essential-skills/