Maths and Numeracy GCSEs

A while ago I read this piece from @bigkid4 about his vision for the future of maths exams. It’s a great piece, with plenty of food for thought, and I’ve thought a lot about it since. Then the other day I was listening to Colin Beveridge (@icecolbeveridge) and Dave Gale (@reflectivemaths) chatting on their podcast “Wrong But Useful“, about the need (or lack of) for all pupils to study maths to GCSE level. Colin suggested a similar idea to @Bigkid4’s blogpost, which was to split the subject into two qualifications. A “Numeracy” one and a “Maths” one, making the Numeracy compulsory and the Maths optional. (nb I have no idea is Colin read this blogpost, but I know it’s an idea I, and others, had had prior to reading it. Great minds and all that…)

Colin and Dave had a long chat about this on the podcast (which was excellent as always- if you aren’t a listener, but like maths, then become one! You won’t regret it!). They postulated that the numeracy qualification was perhaps not big enough to be equivalent to a GCSE and they had a few nice ideas about what could be on it.

That got me thinking, if we did split it, what should go where? And could the numeracy alone be a GCSE?

I think that we could create a stand alone GCSE, but I would call it “Numeracy and Problem Solving”, I would keep the subjects together until KS4, ensuring a basic grounding in each. I would like to see plenty of number on the NPS syllabus, including Fractions, Decimals and Percentages. Certainly things like interest, compound interest etc are paramount in a world of unscrupulous bankers and payday loan sharks. I would like a massive part of it to be around estimation and checking (and, of course, rounding!) include a focus on the all too often missing “common sense“! I would have some basic probability on it to ensure pupils know how daft some gambling is. I would like to see some modelling on there too, as I feel that is a neglected skill at KS4, and one that is extremely important. There would be a large focus on problem solving, and I think it would be imperative to include a bit of basic RAT Trig (Right Angled Triangle Trigonometry. I would say “and Pythagoras’s Theorem”, but that would anger Colin, so I will say “including Pythagoras’s Theorem,” instead). I guess it might seem strange at first, but I know that it’s a skill joiners use, and others in trades that pupils who I know wouldn’t choose maths have ideas to go into.

I also think that charts etc should go here (although boxplots, stem and leaf and any of the other nonsensical ones should be scrapped and forgotten about forever, along with transformations by hand!)

That would leave maths. The higher number stuff would be here (prime factorising, etc). The majority of GCSE algebra would be there too, and some a level stuff too (I’d forget about the GCSE nth term stuff, and go straight to the A level stuff!) I’d like an introduction to calculus and an introduction to topology. Some higher probability stuff, and a good basis to build A Level stats on (variance etc). Perhaps and introduction to matrices and complex numbers too!

I think there are many positives about these ideas, but I would worry about the take up of maths GCSE, and the potential damage that could do to maths A Level and undergraduate take up further down the line.

If you have anything to add, please comment, and if you have any links to other blogs etc around these ideas, I’d love to have them too.