Further Maths as an additional subject

[LPmum]

My DD's school doesn't offer GSCE/Level2 Further Maths which my DD is very keen on. Given that she can only do it as an additional subject (my understanding is that the school would put her through the exam so she wouldn't have to be a private candidate but as such they would not prepare her for the exam), is it actually worth it? She is strong in sciences and maths and is disappointed that she can't do it at school but I'm concerned that it would be a huge commitment (they will already have 11 GCSE subjects at school I believe) and am not sure whether it is worth it - I can't see any advantages of doing an additional GCSE subject.

Does anybody have any experience with their kids doing an additional GCSE subject (i.e. in addition to those done as part of the curriculum at school)? Is/was it worth it?

[hermanmunster]

I have known of pupils doing extras at home etc - mainly heritage languages - or in school eg lunchtime Italian or Ancient Greek.

If it was my child in this case I would just suggest they did as well as they could in the GCSEs they are taking and wait to do any further maths at A level.

[sportsforall]

Eleven is already a substantial number of GCSEs, add maths was only offered in my DD school to those who were in top set and it was taught to them. Having just been through exam season even with 10 subjects there were 23 exams, at 12 you could be looking at 27 over five weeks. It is really quite tough. Further / add maths GCSE is not a prerequisite for maths and further maths A levels.

Having said that, this is really her decision, does she do other activities outside of school? If she does then adding more might be too much, if she doesn't then maybe this is her hobby. I don't think their is a pure 'education' reason to do add / further maths GCSE but if it is her passion then she should go for it.

[PerpetualStudent]

Hi LPMum,

If your DD is already doing 11 GCSEs the Further Maths probably wouldn’t be a helpful addition, especially if your DD is planning on doing A Level maths anyway. But if your DD was planning to do science A Levels without a maths A Level then having more advanced maths might be handy to have. I would have liked my own DD to do the FSMQ but she was only doing 10 GCSEs and (despite being good at maths) was not continuing with maths in 6th form.

PS

Ed for typo

[LPmum]

Thank you @PerpetualStudent, @sportsforall and @hermanmunster for your responses. It seems incredibly unlikely (never say never though particularly as far as teenagers are concerned) that my DD will not to do A level maths so I agree with you that probably the most sensible thing for her would be to do as well as she can in her school GCSEs. It would be great if she could do GSCE/Level2 Further Maths if the school allowed her to drop one of the school GCSEs which I very much doubt but we might ask. Your responses made me wonder though why they do 11 GCSEs at her school. In any event, if she wished to keep it as her hobby she can always do further maths in her own time (it would be interesting how long that would last) so if anybody has any recommendations for good GSCE/Level2 further maths books please share.
Thank you once again for the responses.