From the Gold Standard to Silver Service? - Work in progress on a National Teaching Fellowship Project

A level is the “Gold Standard” but this standard’s immutability is becoming more debated. Nonetheless, an A level pass in a particular subject is frequently essential for a place on a degree course: gaps between a student’s actual attainment and a lecturer’s expectations are bridged (or not) by extra work done and extra support offered. For courses like Engineering, on which a student normally embarks with an A level maths in hand, lecturers now find they must pay extra attention to supplying additional learning support for maths, such as workshops, drop-in centres, etc. In this project, I am looking at courses in Higher Education where mathematics (which includes statistics) is essential for success in the discipline itself. These include Engineering, Science, Computing and Business where, although the maths content is integral, it is dealt with by what used to be called ‘Service Maths’…The project is analysing pre course maths knowledge and level 1 success at university to gauge the value added elements…