Core Maths

Course summary

Core Mathematics is a course for those who want to keep up their valuable mathematics skills but are not planning on taking AS or A Level Mathematics. At the end of the one-year course you will come out with a Level 3 qualification – similar to an AS. Core Mathematics has been designed to maintain and develop real life skills. The first half of the course is in three sections. The statistics section recaps all of the different types of sampling and ways of representing data before looking at the averages and standard deviation as well as correlation of scatter-graphs. These skills can then be applied to a wide range of data such as costs of houses, scores in tests, etc. The second section is on personal finance, which introduces the concepts of tax, national insurance, APR and AER on credit cards and loans. This all builds on the percentages skills pupils will have studied at GCSE. The final section is estimation, which looks at Fermi problems such as estimating how many bricks there are in the school or the cost of resurfacing a section of the M25. This builds on rounding skills, standard form from GCSE as well as demonstrating the importance of assumptions and being able to explain step-by-step how to get to a final answer. The second half of the course is one optional unit from the choice of statistics – looking at normal distribution graphs – where students will study linear quadratic and exponential graphs. The final choice is critical path analysis which is used in logistics using various charts such as Gant charts in order to prioritise the order in which certain tasks should take place. A range of methods are used from textbooks to investigations. The use of calculators is encouraged and some real life resources such as Tax and National Insurance information is used. Many of the skills taught fit in with several of the other A Level subjects. For example, lots of the statistics fits in with Geography, Sociology, Biology. The personal finance will help with Business and Economics. Some of the graph work fits in with Physics and Engineering.