How the FMSP helps schools/colleges to offer Further Mathematics: Case studies

Case Study 1

School: Aylesford School
Key Contact: Neil McRae (Head of Maths)

Aylesford was originally part of a Further Maths consortium with two other schools in Warwickshire.
Further Maths tuition was provided to students from consortium schools by Further Mathematics Network (FMN) tutors (The FMN was the predecessor to the FMSP).
Over the past few years Further Maths group sizes have steadily increased as A level Maths is well supported at Aylesford and AS/A level Maths and Further Maths are strongly promoted by the school.
During 2008/2009 maths staff at Aylesford worked with the FMN to consolidate their subject knowledge of AS Further Maths (e.g. through teachers attending revision days and sitting in on coursework sessions). The school also arranged to timetable AS Further Maths within its own timetable as there was now a viable group size. The FMN helped by promoting the course to students through talks at the school, and the FMSP provided lesson notes and access to Moodle resources to support the school during the transition phase from external FMN tuition to tuition by Aylesford mathematics staff.
From September 2009, Aylesford has taken AS Further Maths tuition in-house. The A2 students are still taught through tutors provided by the FMSP and the FMSP continues to support the other two schools in the consortium.
The transition to in-house provision is working well.

School: Stockport College
Key Contact: Christos Demetriou (Maths Subject Leader)

The Maths Subject Leader is keen to offer Further Maths at the college but, as an FE college, Stockport College has no tradition of Further Maths and doesn't have a particularly big A level Maths group.
The college was unable to timetable Further Maths, but last academic year Abi Bown, the local FMSP Area Coordinator, made the Maths Subject Leader aware that Further Maths could be offered through the FMSP, even if it wasn’t included on the college timetable.
As a result, this year the FMSP has enabled students at the college to access Further Maths tuition by using the Maths Subject Leader as an FMSP tutor. He teaches the students in his free time after college and is paid by the FMSP as an FMSP tutor. The college pays the FMSP for the tuition, according to the standard FMSP model.

School: Princes Risborough School
Key Contact: Alexandra Hewitt (Mathematics Teacher and FMSP Area Coordinator)

Princes Risborough School is a non-selective Upper School in Buckinghamshire, where approximately 40% of students attend grammar schools.
Numbers studying mathematics at A level are small, and to encourage students to stay in the sixth form it was considered essential to offer Further Mathematics.
In 2006, AS Further Mathematics was offered to both year 12 and year 13. Two modules were taught in school, partly using Enrichment time. For the third module, students travelled to the local Further Mathematics Network class in Amersham.
From 2007 students were able to continue with A2 Further Mathematics. Numbers remain low and variable, but the flexibility offered by the FMSP has enabled the option to continue, with a mixture of in-house and FMSP teaching, depending on staffing and pupil numbers.
Although initially introduced to enable high achieving students to reach their full potential within the school, there have been notable successes with students of a wide range of abilities, including those with Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome and English as an Additional Language.
The school accepts all students with GCSE B grade or higher onto the Mathematics course, and will accept students with C grades on their year 11 teacher’s recommendation. The only additional requirement for studying Further Mathematics is a real enthusiasm for the subject.

School: Kenilworth School
Key Contact: Anna Poynter (Maths Teacher)

Kenilworth School has been successfully offering the full A-level in Further Maths for some time. However, the school is unable to offer AS Further Maths to students who choose to take this option in Year 13. The school does have the staffing and timetabling resource for this, but the small group sizes prohibit this option from running.
To address this problem, and simultaneously support the wider mathematical community, Kenilworth School provides a member of staff on a secondment basis to teach Further Maths through a local consortium. This consortium includes the year 13 Kenilworth students described above, in addition to a number of other students from schools who have little or no provision for Further Maths.
The FMSP supports this consortium by providing additional staffing and transport and a venue for the teaching to occur.

School: Felpham Community College
Key Contact: Vicky Thorn (Head of Maths)

The head of department contacted the local FMSP Area coordinator at Christmas about the possibility of FM support and tuition for three yr 12 AS students and three yr 13 A2 students, to cover long-term illness of their FM teacher.
The Area Coordinator was able to arrange live online tuition for the students and an online revision session for the students taking FP4 in January.
This has enabled the students to continue to receive Further Mathematics tuition, even though their normal teacher was unavailable.
A fee to the school was agreed, based on the amount of tuition required to cover the teacher’s absence.
Vicky Thorn, Head of Maths, said: "I have now (through the FMSP Area Coordinator) arranged for our Y12 students to join Dr Martyn Parker's FP2 lessons and to support this in our class time. Martyn has also sent me (recordings of) the lessons from the start of FP2 so that I can use these too - which is brilliant."

Edited CS 25/5/10

QCA have produced a report: Offering further mathematics as part of the A level curriculum
Download the report