Maths in schools - why don't they do this?

SexyGreyFox · 13 May 2008 at 21:06

Or perhaps they do in some schools.

2 weeks ago I sat with 25 year 11 students while they did a Numeracy Level 1 on PC's that are linked to a College.
Most of them walked it and were then invited to do the Level 2 which is equal to a GCSE grade A to C.
Some of the little ducks failed and today I had to ring up their respective schools and feed back information from the PC's.
Now some of the girls were moaning that their maths teachers don't help them where they need it but the simple test that we do shows exactly their strong & weak points.
eg
You scored 28 out of 40 Pass

1 - Ratio's - You scored 4 out of 4
2 - Muliplication - You scored 5 out of 7
3 - Decimals - You scored 0 out of 5
etc etc

The detailed results show the teachers exactly where the student needs to brush up on but none of the 7 schools I rang did anything like this.
Seems so simple to me.
We've now decided to give year 10's the same test so we can report back to their maths teachers and they have a year to tighten up.

davethe11 · 13 May 2008 at 21:20

responsibiliity

it just takes someone to see the obvious benefits of this and take responsibility for pushing for it and putting it into action. Sounds like they should be taking a leaf out of your book

SexyGreyFox · 13 May 2008 at 21:26

davethe11 said:
responsibiliity

it just takes someone to see the obvious benefits of this and take responsibility for pushing for it and putting it into action. Sounds like they should be taking a leaf out of your book

Well its not my idea - it just happened.
Some of the students were struggling a bit with their BTEC in Health & Social Care so we decided to spend a bit of money on them and let them take Numeracy & Literacy tests.
The by-product is that at a glance you can see (in both numeracy & literacy) where the student is lacking.

Tom0 · 13 May 2008 at 21:30

Bureaucracy is why it doesnt happen.

jojothemonkey69 · 13 May 2008 at 21:34

You'd be quite surprised at how well us teachers know our kids. Although a great idea when it comes to maths and especially mental maths children are encouraged to show their working out. This lets us know how their trying to work out the answer.

Megahurtz400 · 13 May 2008 at 21:36

My first GCSE Maths exam on Monday, cheers for reminding me

georges · 13 May 2008 at 21:39

AS level marks allow the teachers to see marks per question, and since there are around 8 questions per paper and about 8 topics per module, it allows the teachers to see where a student went wrong so if they are doing a resit they can focus more on their weaker aspects.

The way we learn it, we are taught a topic, and then answer a paper of 10 exam questions on that topic at the end, before moving onto the next part. This allows us to see how we are doing at each part, and allows the teachers to tailor our teaching to suit us better.

davethe11 · 13 May 2008 at 21:45

dmpoole said:
Well its not my idea - it just happened.
Some of the students were struggling a bit with their BTEC in Health & Social Care so we decided to spend a bit of money on them and let them take Numeracy & Literacy tests.
The by-product is that at a glance you can see (in both numeracy & literacy) where the student is lacking.

sounds like a good idea what you did, but someone made the decision to spend the money on the tests and looks like its been beneficial. I hope I didn't come across critical of teachers generally, my post seems a bit sharp on second viewing, I think you/they do a great job

Scythe · 13 May 2008 at 21:49

Megahurtz400 said:
My first GCSE Maths exam on Monday, cheers for reminding me

Same

failed it already! haha

Hxc · 13 May 2008 at 21:53

Maths GCSE shouldn't be too bad for me.

Dropped one mark on coursework and have been getting 80s-95s in all the mock papers we've been doing.

RS Short course tommorrow, gonna fail that because it's a stupid thing that hasn't been taught properly, forced upon us, and is only a short course anyway.

Science, particuarly Biology is my big worry.

Megahurtz400 · 13 May 2008 at 21:57

Hxc said:
RS Short course tommorrow, gonna fail that because it's a stupid thing that hasn't been taught properly, forced upon us, and is only a short course anyway.

Same lol, im most worried about chemistry and english, I simply cannot do all that poetry rubbish to save my life!

Modern world history must be my best subject, got an A* in the coursework, hoping im in the right mind set for the exam!

Buffman · 13 May 2008 at 22:18

It's because of GTA IV.

Sounds like they didnt study much tbh if they cant pass something lower than gcse, although maybe i'm a being a bit close minded seeing as I'm good at maths

SexyGreyFox · 13 May 2008 at 22:28

The Craig said:
It's because of GTA IV.

Sounds like they didnt study much tbh if they cant pass something lower than gcse, although maybe i'm a being a bit close minded seeing as I'm good at maths

They'd probably wee all over you in Health & Social Care.
Horses for courses.

aslco · 13 May 2008 at 22:40

Im confused. Don't you do BTecs ect at college. I thought that at the age of 14-16 only GCSE's are possible. Well they were for me.

SexyGreyFox · 14 May 2008 at 07:44

lozzick said:
Im confused. Don't you do BTecs ect at college. I thought that at the age of 14-16 only GCSE's are possible. Well they were for me.

At 14 the students go to Newcastle College & Stoke On Trent College 1 day a week.
They go into a placement 1 day a week and the other 3 days they spend at school.

crunchman · 14 May 2008 at 07:58

Scythe said:
Same failed it already! haha

Don't worry about it, as long as you know the quadratic forumula and how to use sin, cos and tan you should be fine.

fozter · 14 May 2008 at 08:06

Yea, GCSE maths is a walk, I panicked last year but I came out with a decent grade. AS level got difficult though!

SexyGreyFox · 14 May 2008 at 08:27

Just a quick question.

A Numeracy Level 2 is equal to a GCSE grade A to C depending on how many marks you get.
I got 40/40 the other month so I presume I got a A.
However, when I took my GCSE at school in 1974 we did logarithms and calculus etc.
Does this still apply now to GCSE and if so how can a Numeracy level 2 be equal to a GCSE grade A to C?

crunchman · 14 May 2008 at 08:36

dmpoole said:
Just a quick question.

A Numeracy Level 2 is equal to a GCSE grade A to C depending on how many marks you get.
I got 40/40 the other month so I presume I got a A.
However, when I took my GCSE at school in 1974 we did logarithms and calculus etc.
Does this still apply now to GCSE and if so how can a Numeracy level 2 be equal to a GCSE grade A to C?

There's no logarithms up untill the second module of my maths AS level.

This is with the WJEC of course, no idea about the other boards.

fozter said:
Yea, GCSE maths is a walk, I panicked last year but I came out with a decent grade. AS level got difficult though!

C4 is amazing xD

p4radox · 14 May 2008 at 08:39

crunchman said:
There's no logarithms up untill the second module of my maths AS level.

This is with the WJEC of course, no idea about the other boards.

C4 is amazing xD

People deny that subjects get easier, but maths is an example where it's clearly got much easier.

Calculus, logs, and other stuff removed from GCSE, and complex stuff removed from the main maths A level.

Might make it easier to get an A grade, but when universities expect you to still be at the same level when you arrive it makes things very difficult.