: Supporting students with GCSE maths at post 16 (Blog 1 of 2) Blog 1 – How to begin the process, building positive relationships

Over the past few years Oldham Sixth Form College has been working on improving the proportion of GCSE students gaining a pass grade in their GCSE maths resit, with significant improvements in the achievements of these students taking our pass rates far higher than the national averages. In this blog Luke Bywater, Course Leader for GCSE Maths, will discuss some of the things they have done in order to achieve this success.

Oldham Sixth Form College strives to provide an outstanding education to all students who meet the requirements to study at level 3. This often includes students who have yet to achieve the necessary grade in maths to access further education. Over the years we have worked towards a majority of our students in achieving the grade 4 needed to progress into universities and careers. Nationally the picture is not so positive, so what do we do differently with our students that makes a difference?

Building a successful course for GCSE maths resit can be broken down into multiple different areas. The Post 16 GCSE Resit practice review highlights issues with motivation as one of the biggest barriers to success in GCSE maths resit. Today I will be focusing on this and what I believe is the starting point to success in GCSE Maths. In this blog I will focus on the relationship we build within the classroom in order to foster success for our students. This process is backed by Recommendation 2​“Teach learning behaviours alongside managing misbehaviour’ in the Improving Behaviour in Schools guidance report.

Our approach to OSFC: the starting point

When the students come to college and enroll with us they already know they are going to need to pass GCSE maths, it is obviously disappointing for those students who did not. Maths has often not been a subject which they enjoyed in school and now they are being forced to take this subject again.

With the first chance to resit the exams fast approaching in November, and often with less than 6 weeks to prepare, our key considerations are:

- How can we prepare students for a GCSE, which takes at least 2 years to learn, in this time frame?

- What can we do to help these students feel prepared and comfortable with the resit process?

- The answer lies in helping them improve their learning behaviours by addressing the three relationships.

Relationship with self. For the students to be successful they need to be confident in their ability to achieve in the subject. They will often join us feeling that the task ahead is impossible and we need to show them that they can achieve in the subject. The temptation is often to cram in as much learning as possible, working through every past paper. We need to resist this temptation and instead plan a series of lessons and tasks that build the students’ confidence, show them how much maths they can do.

TIP: Choose topics carefully and consider the relevance of these to students, we want quick wins that help the students to begin to unlock their potential.

Once our students start to see what they can achieve their confidence grows and they are much more willing to attempt unfamiliar topics. Students need to be accepting of what success looks like for them. Improving from a grade 2 to a 3 is often harder than moving from a grade 3 to a 4. We must show our students how to be proud of their achievements and help them to understand that even a small improvement of a few marks from their last attempt is something to be celebrated.

Relationship with curriculum. These students have often not had a positive experience with maths in the past and perhaps don’t see the relevance in the subject to their future careers or interests.

TIP: Make it relevant, by linking areas of maths to things that will be relevant to the students.

Percentages, ratio and number work are all relevant and we can give examples here to help students make some links. Put more focus on the calculator papers, this covers 2 thirds of the GCSE and these skills are often more palatable to our learners. Help the students to be aware that there are some topics which won’t be relevant to them, don’t try and find reasons and excuses to make them relevant. Students should know that they need to feel confident with most topics, not all topics, and help them to see how to use this to their advantage.

Relationship with others. Without building positive relationships with others the other two ​‘relationships’ can’t happen. They should feel happy to come to the lesson and be willing to work with each other and contribute to the class. This relationship starts from day 1. Show understanding to the students and help them to feel confident.

TIP: Have high expectations, that are the same as any other student in the college in all other subjects. They will appreciate the fact that they are being treated in the same way as others and will meet whatever reasonable expectations we have of them. Ultimately they need us to believe in them and to feel that we believe they can achieve the grade in our subject, they need to feel comfortable to ask us questions and to express any concerns they have with us.

With these 3 steps in place and a consistent approach across your cohort you have the starting point of a successful course.