GCSE Maths Exam
Since the start of the new academic year we have been inundated with GCSE Maths tuition requests as most students have found the new course to be much more challenging than the old one. At Harrogate Tutors we set out to find exactly why this was and came up with the following conclusions:
The new topics, functions, Venn diagrams and iterative methods are difficult.
There is only the specimen papers to practise from so the bank of relevant GCSE Maths revision materials has been significantly reduced.
The styles of questions have changed. In the old GCSE Maths papers topics like probability trees were seen as tricky, now they have introduced complex algebra into some of the questions it makes them unanswerable for many medium ability students.
The application of topics has increased so the context's of questions have been expanded on. So for instance trigonometry are now always given as part of a scenario where as on the old GCSE Maths papers they were often straight forward find this length or angle.
New question types on old topics are catching many students out on the new GCSE specimen papers so things like proof questions and applied vectors are more challenging than ever.
The new grade 9 means that as a whole the practise papers appear to be much more difficult in order to further differentiate between students across the level 1-9 grading system.
Teachers in the local secondary schools are not use to teaching this level of Maths and some are struggling with the content and as a result students are struggling even more. As a region, Yorkshire is desperately short of suitably qualified GCSE Maths teachers and as a result the number of supply and under qualified Maths teachers in schools is very high.
At Harrogate Tutors all of our GCSE Maths Tutors are up to speed with the new syllabus and know the new questions types inside out. We believe that our Maths tutors are the best placed to help your child to progress with their studies. If you are looking for a GCSE Maths tutor in Harrogate, contact Harrogate Tutors today!