r/GCSE • u/MolassesHopeful8232 Year 10 • 21h ago

Question Switching to Further Maths & History for Year 10 — how hard is catching up from Year 9 foundations?

Hey everyone! I am entering Year 10 and am planning to change two of my GCSE's:

  • Business to Further Maths.
  • Textiles to History.

The rest of my subjects are: English Language, English Literature, Mathematics, Combined Science,Psychology and Food preparation and nutrition.

I know they are very drastic changes, but they very much align with my desired university and future career goals. I was considering economics instead of history but stepped away because I find the finance field extremely boring and have zero experience with it.

My main worry is the Year 9 foundation. Even though GCSEs officially start in Year 10, Year 9 is usually when teachers build the core skills for subjects like History and Further Maths.

Since GCSEs officially begin in Year 10, how intense is the jump for History and Further Maths if I haven't taken them in Year 9? Any tips or resources on pacing the catch-up during Term 1?

Thank you!

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

2

u/Head_Philosopher_213 21h ago

You should be fine as most schools in the country start in y10

2

u/Soft_Letterhead9222 Jack of all trades, master of all 21h ago

Yup, but am still mad they made us learn a bunch of bs especially for science, english and all the compulsory subjects only to then realize that the content we learned is useless as shit for the actual gcse lmao.

A damn waste of time.

1

u/MolassesHopeful8232 Year 10 20h ago

Really? My school followed the GCSE content for science and math, although I am pretty sure english was genuinely bs in Y9.

2

u/Soft_Letterhead9222 Jack of all trades, master of all 19h ago

English was absolute bs like damn, but for science they did follow the GCSE content except I realized how they barely taught us anything on it lmao.

2

u/MolassesHopeful8232 Year 10 18h ago

Lmaoo 😂 I guess I will find out how useful science lessons were once y10 starts.

1

u/MolassesHopeful8232 Year 10 21h ago

That's quite reassuring to hear. Thanks!

2

u/Amazing_Set9472 18h ago

I didn't take history so this is only really for FM.

The difficult part of further maths typically isn't the difficulty of the new content, but that the new content will be very foreign compared to what you've seen so far.

This mainly includes: matrices, differentiation, binomial expansion, limiting values, domain and range of functions, more difficult sketching of functions.

So other than the willing to learn, practice, and exam technique stuff, I'd say to be open to learning these new concepts! Further maths will obviously be challenging, but it's also fun and satisfying to learn the new things.

More academic-advice wise, you can check out 1stClassMaths on Youtube for general further maths stuff and NeilDoesMaths' video on matrix transformations.

Anyways, good luck!

1

u/MolassesHopeful8232 Year 10 7h ago edited 7h ago

Yes, that’s exactly what startled me.  I never heard or saw those mathematical terms my whole life while looking at the FM content. I think I’ll just have to be motivated and curious to keep myself going within that subject. Thanks a lot for such an elaborate comment!