Mathematics: Sixth Form Education
(asked on 16th January 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the percentage of school pupils in England in Years 12 and 13 not currently studying Mathematics.
As seen in the table below, the department estimates that around 54% of pupils in all state-funded settings in England at the end of key stage 4 in 2018/19 did not participate in maths at post-16. This data has been taken from the following publication: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/post-16-maths-participation-for-pupils-ending-ks4-in-2018-to-2019.
Table 1: Estimates of post-16 maths participation for pupils at the end of KS4 in 2018/19
| Cohort of pupils at end of KS4 (2018/19) | Estimate of cohort studying maths to meet condition of funding* | Total maths exam entries for A level and AS (2020/21) | Core Maths entries (2020/21) | Estimate of cohort not participating in maths post-16 | Estimate of cohort participating in a maths qualification post-16 |
| (a) | (b) | (c) | (d) | (e) = (a) - (b) - (c) - (d) | (f) = (a) - (e) |
% of cohort | 100.0 | 29.8 | 14.6 | 1.9 | 53.7 | 46.3 |
Number | 542,621 | 164,701 | 79,160 | 10,345 | 291,415 | 251,206 |
Source: KS4 data (2018/19), 16 to 18 attainment data (2020/21), Core Maths data (2020/21 – previously unpublished)
*To meet the condition of funding, a student must study an approved qualification. These are GCSEs, functional skills level 2 and certain other qualifications, known as ‘stepping stone’ qualifications. Full-time students who have a GCSE grade 3 or grade D must study a maths and/or English GCSE.