The Student Room Group

How to sit higher GCSE maths?

Here's a brief run down of what happened to me.
I started doing my GCSEs when the government changed from the letter grading system to the numeric system (A-U, 1 - 9). I was predicted to get a grade 6 in Maths but could have probably gotten higher. For some insane reason the head of Maths at my high school decided that everyone apart from the top set was going to sit foundation Maths even though the lower level staff pleaded for him to change his mind. I ended up passing all my GCSEs and getting a grade 5 in Maths which is the highest available on foundation Maths.
I wanted to do further Maths at A-Level but couldn't because I only had a grade 5 so I ended up getting doing an extended UAL level 3 game design diploma where I achieved a distinction. I told one of my tutors about the problem in the second year of the course and he got in touch with the Maths department to help me do what I actually wanted to do (according to him I was far more skilled at programming than what he'd expect at my age and thought my talent would be wasted in game design). I talked to the Maths department slowly over a few months and eventually find out that I'll have to sit higher GCSE Maths for a year which I'm fine with. They asked for my email and told me they would email me when they have more information about the cost and when I should go in to enroll but today I found out by accident (not from them) that my college isn't doing a higher GCSE Maths course this year. It's now too late to try to get in to uni, I can't do the A-Levels I need to do what I want to do at uni because of the Maths, and everywhere I look online to sit higher GCSE Maths is either on the other side of the country, don't accept people my age, or only do a foundation Maths course.

Can anyone who has had a similar experience give me any advice? I want to do computer science but I want to do a one that involves a lot of Maths rather than just "Hey look this is an array, it does cool stuff, it's basically a pointer but you don't have to manually figure out offsets". I've thought about sitting the exam as a private candidate but I'm finding it hard to find anywhere near me that will allow me to (I live in Newcastle upon Tyne if anyone knows anywhere near me) and I'm worried that I won't be able to learn all of the required content without guidance.

One other thing that's slightly related. Does anyone know if brilliant.org would help with either GCSE or A-Level Maths? I've been tempted to buy it for a while but I'm not sure how much more helpful it will be over Khan academy.
Original post by ScrewedByMaths
Here's a brief run down of what happened to me.
I started doing my GCSEs when the government changed from the letter grading system to the numeric system (A-U, 1 - 9). I was predicted to get a grade 6 in Maths but could have probably gotten higher. For some insane reason the head of Maths at my high school decided that everyone apart from the top set was going to sit foundation Maths even though the lower level staff pleaded for him to change his mind. I ended up passing all my GCSEs and getting a grade 5 in Maths which is the highest available on foundation Maths.
I wanted to do further Maths at A-Level but couldn't because I only had a grade 5 so I ended up getting doing an extended UAL level 3 game design diploma where I achieved a distinction. I told one of my tutors about the problem in the second year of the course and he got in touch with the Maths department to help me do what I actually wanted to do (according to him I was far more skilled at programming than what he'd expect at my age and thought my talent would be wasted in game design). I talked to the Maths department slowly over a few months and eventually find out that I'll have to sit higher GCSE Maths for a year which I'm fine with. They asked for my email and told me they would email me when they have more information about the cost and when I should go in to enroll but today I found out by accident (not from them) that my college isn't doing a higher GCSE Maths course this year. It's now too late to try to get in to uni, I can't do the A-Levels I need to do what I want to do at uni because of the Maths, and everywhere I look online to sit higher GCSE Maths is either on the other side of the country, don't accept people my age, or only do a foundation Maths course.

Can anyone who has had a similar experience give me any advice? I want to do computer science but I want to do a one that involves a lot of Maths rather than just "Hey look this is an array, it does cool stuff, it's basically a pointer but you don't have to manually figure out offsets". I've thought about sitting the exam as a private candidate but I'm finding it hard to find anywhere near me that will allow me to (I live in Newcastle upon Tyne if anyone knows anywhere near me) and I'm worried that I won't be able to learn all of the required content without guidance.

One other thing that's slightly related. Does anyone know if brilliant.org would help with either GCSE or A-Level Maths? I've been tempted to buy it for a while but I'm not sure how much more helpful it will be over Khan academy.


If the school have let you down over the maths you should make a complaint and ask to be allowed to sit the A levels, whilst you agree to take maths as a private candidate. You should have really done this last year or the year before, then you could have avoided this position.

Sitting as private candidate involves two things:

1. Somewhere to learn from, school, online course or teach yourself.
https://cloudlearn.co.uk/Courses/Online-A-Level-Courses/101

If you were that clever you could do GCSE and GCE at the same time.
2. Somewhere to sit the exam, which your school could do or you find a private centre to sit the exam. They just want money.
https://cloudlearn.co.uk/ExamCentres

The exam board website normally has a list that you can start with.

All most CS courses want will be Maths, but also the grades.
Unis also offer CS with foundation year for which they can sort out any subject deficiencies as long as you have the grades.

Been much better if youd dealt with the maths much sooner and just sat it privately.
Its in your interest to get parents to talk to school and see if you can do A levels there as its partly their fault and by the time you have got maths you might be too old. If not happy lodge a complaint and find a new school.

This thread seems familiar, so if have answered before then what I said last time.
Update one this. I could only find one place local to me that was allowing private candidates and only one college near me had a course that lets people resit their higher maths. There was some miscommunication but I managed to get on to the course. If anyone else has this problem the only advice I can give is to go in to open days and ask actual tutors questions instead of using email because in my experience the people answering support emails often don't have a very good idea of what they're talking about.

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