Examination Board: Edexcel (Website)

Why study Mathematics?

The main role of Welbeck DSFC is to enable all students to go on to become technical officers, and in particular engineering officers. For this reason Mathematics A-level is a basic requirement, and so all students follow the Edexcel course for two years with the aim of achieving at least grade C. As can be seen from the tables below, this target is becoming realistic for all students.

All examination boards have a compulsory ‘Core’ of 4 modules, which is ’Pure’ mathematics, and is required by universities as a baseline.  In addition, the choice units are the ‘Application’ modules, and we choose to take two mechanics units.  Over the two years we do two examinations at the end of the first year, two more in the following January, and the final two at the end of the second year.  This is a policy we have successfully used over the past three years.  During this time the number of students in the lower sixth has increased from 122 to 178, while the percentage of students gaining at least grade B at A-level has risen from 59% to 68%.  Furthermore we are expecting this figure to go beyond 70% this year, with the vast majority of the remainder gaining grade C.  With all 7 mathematics teachers being graduates of mathematics, and with determined and conscientious students working very hard, it is no surprise that these figures are so good.

Our more able students are encouraged to work ahead of the class in the first year, and they may well take extra modules in both the first and second year. This is particularly useful for the few students who decide to take a full ‘Further mathematics’ A-level (twelve modules in total, three of which are studied out of normal class time by the students themselves). More and more students are taking AS-level Further Mathematics as an ‘option’ in the second year (30 this summer). This is an extra four periods per week, with a mixture of pure and applied mathematics.

Lessons are generally teacher led activities, with increasing use of internet examples. Students are encouraged to use graphic calculators (we suggest the Casio fx 9750) as the advantages to lesson understanding and examination success are increased.