Andrew

Fairly sure blue would not got 50% if 'private vote' meant you weren't allowed to incessantly virtue signal about choosing blue.

@Sum1st @NoEducationTax @StufferSuitcase @Samfr @KingofSW6 It would depend on their business model. It's horribly complicated. The law changed a couple of years back. Essentially, it depends on how they control their tutors. If they take the payment on behalf of the tutors, or dictate how, what or when the tutor teaches, then yes.

@AndyPMaths @NoEducationTax @StufferSuitcase @Samfr @KingofSW6 So Kumon would have VAT on their fees?

I don’t really now how @Samfr can defend this policy with direct outcomes like this. Anecdote vs data / policy again but this time anecdote wins.

@Sum1st @StufferSuitcase @NoEducationTax @Samfr @KingofSW6 Someone who is self-employed, but has not formed a limited company would perhaps be the simplest way to think of it.

@StufferSuitcase @AndyPMaths @NoEducationTax @Samfr @KingofSW6 What is sole trader in this context? I am sorry not very familiar with these terminologies

@NoEducationTax @Sum1st @StufferSuitcase @Samfr @KingofSW6 Private tuition in a subject normally taught in schools is vat exempt, provided the tutor is either a sole trader or part of a limited liability partnership (this os different from a limited company)

@Sum1st @AndyPMaths @StufferSuitcase @Samfr @KingofSW6 Any sole trader or business with a turnover of 90k+ who provides VATable services should be charging it.

@NoEducationTax @StufferSuitcase @Sum1st @Samfr @KingofSW6 Correct.

@AndyPMaths @StufferSuitcase @Sum1st @Samfr @KingofSW6 Even if the sole trader exceeds the £90k VAT threshold?

@StufferSuitcase @Sum1st @NoEducationTax @Samfr @KingofSW6 This is not entirely correct. Private tutors who operate as sole traders are exempt from VAT, but limited companies who provide tuition are not exempt.

@Sum1st @NoEducationTax @Samfr @KingofSW6 Not usually if it’s private tuition and it’s a subject usually taught in schools. It is a mystery why the people clamouring for VAT on private education or complaining about bought advantages are so quiet on this - even though it’s many many thousands of pupils!

@tm_maths @Adil11235 This doesn't look like a typical OCR mark scheme. Could you share the question and what paper it's from?

@Adil11235 I think @AndyPMaths can help you

Anyone with experience of OCRA ALevel Maths. This is from a markscheme. I wanted to check why inequality notation is not allowed? The question just said state the range. Mainly I just need to know if students need to stick to interval notation in current spec. TIA

@mjjtuition @mathsjem @Advanced_Maths @robotmaths @gradeAinAll @mathstutortom @NigMathTutor Interesting question. To the best of my knowledge, Part (c) has only been tested once on the new spec and that was on an MEI paper in 2019.

#alevelmaths people, this question is frustrating me. Why can it not be 2 tailed, in theory? What is part c saying, and what would be the value, and why? I have a block 😂 @mathsjem @Advanced_Maths @robotmaths @gradeAinAll @mathstutortom @NigMathTutor

@JamesHandscombe I could care less about these.

I don't know who needs to know this, but interest is piqued (pricked), not peaked, and if you praise something you are lauding it (from laudare - to praise), not lording it. This PSA was brought to you by the correct usage of antiquated language association.

@MathsNot @WRoberts3 A bizarre argument. If there was only private health care and someone suggested an NHS would you be here like "who's gonna run it, Bupa?". Everyone acting like this has never been done successfully anywhere else in the world.

@WRoberts3 If none of the above, a new national board from scratch? A government quango or a private company? Or perhaps Ofqual could take over exam board functions, much like SQA in Scotland.

I think it depends on the question. Edexcel accepted a "meets in the middle" proof on this year's paper 2. To be on the safe side, I advise my students to start from the LHS, as that's what the questions is likely designed for. However, if they get stuck I encourage them to write the RHS lower down the page and work up the page, which is essentially working from the RHS, but it looks like they started from the left to the examiner. This tends to work particularly well for proofs that come before a fixed point iteration question as it's often difficult to see which 'x' they're supposed to rearrange for.

In A level maths, if you have to prove something, are you allowed to prove it by starting with the RHS and ending up with the LHS? Or do you have to do it left to right?

@MathsNot If we're gonna teach marginal tax rates, let's do it properly. If only the marginal tax rate was 40% at the lower end of the higher rate! x.com/DanNeidle/stat…

If #coremaths taught students only this, it would be worth offering

Stick 'em on some index cards and practise them every day until they're learned. Then practise them less frequently. My personal opinion is that they are so fundamental to they A Level course that just deriving them is insufficient. As an analogy, it's a bit like not learning your 7 times table because you could just work them out by adding 7. The one who knows the 7's immediately knows that 7 is a common factor of 56 and 63. You can't derive something like that easily because if you don't know 56 and 63 are in the 7 times table you don't think to look there. Yes, you could get by without learning all the trig identities, but you'll end up being one of those people that sees someone else successfully completing a trig proof and thinking it's magic because they could see what to do. When they saw '2sinxcosx' they also immediately also saw 'sin2x' or they saw sec^2(x), they immediately knew it could be rewritten in terms of tan^2(x) without having to pause and write out a load of derivations. It's like speaking a second language. You're never going to have a good conversation if you keep having to look in your translation dictionary to find a word half way through a sentence.

Has anyone got any tricks or help for remembering all the a level trig identities? Students can derive but struggle to remember them to do integration etc that requires them to spot them.

@knightofmaths @Whitehughes @mathsmuse The problem with deriving is that it doesn't work so well if you need to do it backwards. For example students are at a disadvantage if they are not able to see 2sinxcosx and recognise an alternate form.

@Whitehughes @mathsmuse I have found that remembering the formula for cos(a+b), sin^2+cos^2=1 and using a mnemonic for things like sin(90+x), cos(90-x) suffice to derive the rest.

@melissamaths @ECR_Maths @mathsjem @KerryDunton @JohnRubinstein1 @BerwickMaths @galoisgirl @nkl_17 @ravenmaths @MuirMaths @ShawMaths Also, this was all maths students, not just further.

At my college almost all students had one. We got a slight discount due to no VAT and bulk buying. Students on low household incomes were entitled to one for free. We also ran a buy-back scheme and sold these on as second-hand to new students. This essentially meant that over the two years you could use one for free.

Do you or your A-Level Further Maths students use the Casio FXCG50 graphic calculator? @ECR_Maths @mathsjem @KerryDunton @JohnRubinstein1 @BerwickMaths @galoisgirl @nkl_17 @ravenmaths @MuirMaths @ShawMaths

I remember it well. Rather than a couple of months of stress before exams we had it constantly throughout the two years. Always revising for the next exam and doing extra revision sessions for those resitting. I remember how we used to have to enter all students for their exams in year 10 so that they had '2 bites at the cherry'. Glad the government banned those results from counting towards league tables. That's the only way they could make this work. Ban resit marks from counting towards the league tables. Schools wouldn't give a crap about resits then, but students could still do them if they were self motivated enough. Then it might not be quite as much the workload nightmare it would otherwise be.

@AndyPMaths Well sure, but exam stress continues to be an issue. There could certainly be fewer papers in linear exams (which would help the boards where £££ are concerned) but it’s still worth exploring mitigating the effects of the all-or-nothing aspect by spreading assessments over time

Blimey, this is where I came in

@MathsNot Whenever an outside organisation tries to force change onto schools I always try to consider what their motivation might be. In this case, I'm completely stumped. Who might stand to benefit by subjecting children to considerably more exams over their school career?

@AndyPMaths Re-sits could be taken right at the end of term (for Year 10) or right at the beginning so they don’t eat into teaching time; if things go online, maybe they could be taken in August or at Christmas. Relax the rules a bit and there are many models that could be piloted. 2/2

@MathsNot I just don't see how you could temper the cons in today's target obsessed environment. My experience is that it's much worse now than 15 years ago. There would be plenty of mandatory resits if you don't hit your target, followed by forced 'revision classes' for staff to run.

@AndyPMaths I think there are pros and cons with modular exams and work, informed by experience, could be done to enhance the pros and temper the cons