New A Level Further Maths 2017

The A Levels are becoming linear which means all exams must be taken in the same year. But it's not clear whether this must be done in year 13.

So if a student is doing both maths and further maths, would it be possible for the student to do the maths A Level in year 12 i.e. take all of the maths exams at the end of year 12, and then take further maths in year 13?

The A Levels are becoming linear which means all exams must be taken in the same year. But it's not clear whether this must be done in year 13.

So if a student is doing both maths and further maths, would it be possible for the student to do the maths A Level in year 12 i.e. take all of the maths exams at the end of year 12, and then take further maths in year 13?

I don't see why not. As it's just time. This is how double maths already works.

Not sure if additional further maths is being reformed...

Not only can you do this, but then you could retake the Maths A Level at the end of year 13 if it didn't go as well as hoped. You'd have to retake all exams, of course, which would be a lot of work, but the option is there.

Yes you can.


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Do you know if it will be common for schools to do it like this from 2017 i.e. maths in Y12 and FM in Y13?

The alternative is to take all maths and further maths exams at the end of Year 13, which sounds like a lot.

I know that FM has been designed so that it can be taught in parallel with maths so I'm thinking that some schools will do it this way.

Do you know if it will be common for schools to do it like this from 2017 i.e. maths in Y12 and FM in Y13?

The alternative is to take all maths and further maths exams at the end of Year 13, which sounds like a lot.

I know that FM has been designed so that it can be taught in parallel with maths so I'm thinking that some schools will do it this way.

Additional further maths will no longer exist.


Posted from TSR Mobile

I wanted to take Further Maths but only for AS since I don't think I will be able cope with it at A2, but now I'm not going to take it at all because that isn't possible. Did anyone here do Further Maths at A2? How hard is it, or how can I prepare for it if I'm in Year 11 at the moment?

TBH, it really isn't that much work if you're on top of the FM side of things. (I did this, as did many of my cohort, and it really wasn't any kind of stress at all).

There is nothing in the new specifications to prevent you from taking an AS In further maths.
Working hard to master every aspect of GCSE maths will prepare you well to study A level maths and further maths. Some people have the opportunity to study extra maths qualifications that introduce some of the A level content such as Additional Maths (OCR) or a further maths GCSE/level 2 certificate. If your school offers that opportunity take it, but if not it isn't essential.

In my days, (a long time ago) it was very political.

My school forbid us to take A-Level maths in the Lower Sixth because they said
no matter what grade you achieved, you'd have to declare it on the UCCA (yes
UCCA, not UCAS!) form.

Not sure if that were entirely true but it did mean the school would look less good in the league tables if you only got a B, so they maximised your chances of
getting an A by delaying until the Upper Sixth to take it.

However, that meant you had to take both the A-Level and Further (plus any
other S-Levels / STEP) in the same year.

In the end I had 15 hours of maths exam within a space of 2 weeks!

Think London board allowed you to take Pure Maths A-Level, Applied Maths A-Level and Stats A-Level, in order to gain
3 A-Levels.

I think in general if you were going to take an S-level, you needed to take the A-level at the same time. (Certainly true for my cohort, hence 3 of us retaking A-level maths despite already having a grade A in it. I think the school had little hesitation declaring the 'A' grades for both sittings, as well!).

Yeah, ~18 hours here (from memory; might have been more). But other than having S-level M+FM on the same day (*), it wasn't that stressful. Of course, by the same token, the M+FM A-levels were pretty trivial if you were working at S-levels, and realistically, a 2.5 hour exam was more like 90 minutes of actual work, and an hour of increasingly idle checking.

Edit: Just thiking back, at that time the Tripos was 12 hours over 2 days. Part III was 18 hours over 4 days.

In my time it was M (Maths with Mechanics), FM and Maths with Stats. Maths with Stats and M shared the pure material, so no-way was taking all 3 "worth" 3 A-levels, but it was generally counted as them. (I actually did this, but more because I took Maths with Stats quite young, and no-one had quite worked out that "that's a dead-end A-level, you'll need to retake with Mechanics so you can do the S-level and the FM exam".

(*) M + FM S-level on the same day is probably the most exhausting exam experience I've endured - considerably worse than the Tripos. I ended up having to write an answer out again during the second exam because I'd written so much my handwriting was falling apart. Fortunately I had a good 7 answers, so in the end I decided I was at diminishing returns and left early.