Our post-16 GCSE Maths route map could hold the key to your learners success

Your learners have seen it all before when it comes to GCSE Maths – they’re resitters. It may be a while ago, it may be recent – but they’ll have already worked towards trying to gain a GCSE Grade 4. They know what they need to do, they just can’t do it all…yet.

Having led a department in a large FE College for many years and in my current role as a National Teacher Trainer, I’ve met with lots of teachers from a variety of settings in the post-16 arena. I know that resitters need a different ‘diet’ to what they’ve received before if they’re to have a better chance of being successful at Grade 4.

The post-16 GCSE Maths route map has been specifically designed for the teaching of resitters of the GCSE maths curriculum, based upon the principles of revision. It’ll help to support your teaching and delivery of this different approach.”

Guidance from awarding bodies is that ‘unless a learner is likely to gain a Grade 6 they should sit the Foundation Tier’. The route map is written for resitters of the Foundation tier.

If it looks, feels and sounds like the maths they’ve seen before, you’ll just get the same result

For a resit learner who achieves a Grade 4, it’s a significant achievement. It means they’ll never have to resit again, and they will benefit as it will enhance their CV – National Numeracy figures show that learners with a Grade 4 earn more money over their lifetime at work than someone without.

There are three main barriers to success in post-16 GCSE Maths resits; lack of confidence in their own ability; relevance to them in their own circumstances and previous negative learning experience. Acknowledging these issues and having a strategic plan to address them is perfectly possible.

A different ‘diet’ should tackle these barriers head-on to motivate and engage the resitters who have little confidence in their ability to pass, this time around. The route map delivers a revision-based approach with 30 weeks of suggested resources to help support your teaching.

Re-vision the maths to see it differently this time around

You don’t need 100% in the exam for a Grade 4 or 5

The route map focuses on another important feature of the revision-year approach. Find out what they can do and strengthen that. Find out what they can sort of do so that they can do it. That’s enough to move someone from Grade 3 to Grade 4. Anything else is a bonus and may even take them to Grade 5.

Make the student the architect of their own learning

It won’t surprise you that many of your learners spend much time on online platforms such as YouTube, Tik Tok and Insta. They’ll have them on in the background while revising, taking frequent looks. By arming them with a myriad of online websites and YouTube channels, exploring different ways of working may engage them better. The route map helps do this by handing control to the learner using mechanisms that they’re very familiar with and stepping away from work they have seen before in a traditional way.

Fluency and the nine mathematical basics

50% of the GCSE Maths at Foundation level is based upon AO1 – these are the first two Rs in the 5Rs approach – recall and routine maths.

Building the nine mathematical basics will build a firm foundation in maths knowledge. The nine basics are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, percentages, scale and ratio.

There’ll be many benefits to strengthening these areas. Problem-solving and reasoning both depend upon mathematical fluency. The route map allows for plenty of mathematical fluency development and practise.

The 5Rs revision-year approach has been trialled with some year 11 learners who are destined for college or who struggle at Foundation Tier, to good effect. The route map has multiple opportunities to shore up and strengthen the basics through the first two Rs in our 5Rs routine – recall and routine.

The starting point isn’t that they know nothing

The revise part of the 5Rs within the route map is based upon the high-frequency topics; those that reappear every year. There are around 50 such topics and resitters may well know something about each topic. The Revise part of the route map looks at different ways of revising these key topics. Then the Repeat phase looks at two or three typical questions based on the revision.

The only way to get good at maths, is to do maths. Lots of maths

Revision-year approach