Should students that do Specialist be restricted from Further?

[Hancock]

I was actually giving this some thought the other day. Since further is meant to be targeted to students with lower mathematical ability, should students that want to do Specialist as well be unable to enrol in Further?

Further, at the moment, is a subject that most cluey maths students take to just dominate easily (content is not that difficult), leaving the targeted students with <40 scores.

I don't hold a stance either way, just wanted to know what everyone else thinks.

[Lasercookie]

Restriction makes sense, but I don't know how it would work. What if they do Further in Year 11 and then decide to do Specialist later? That's a pretty big loophole.

[Special At Specialist]

Considering students who do specialist can't have further maths in their primary 4 (unless it replaces methods or specialist), then there is no use in placing another restriction. The system is enough of a discouragement as it is. It's not like their ATAR is going to go up significantly by doing 3 maths instead of 2.

[pi]

I think that rule should exist. If you want to do Further, don't do spesh.

Even better is an idea that came up on IRC. Have basic (don't scale much if at all) and advanced versions of subjects (scale well). ie. Physics Basic (like our current vce physics) and Physics Advanced (with maths and stuff), Methods and Spesh (no Further needed), etc. And then have a rule that everyone has to do at least 2 advanced subjects out of 6 for example. I think this mirrors systems overseas, but I'm not sure which ones haha

[Conic]

I don't think that there is enough overlap between them to warrant letting students chose only one. I mean you could say the same thing about letting "smart people" do "easy" subjects. You could say people who do specialist shouldn't be allowed to do food tech because it's "easier".

[Hancock]

If I'm not mistaken, this rule was implemented prior to the '2 maths in top 4' rule which reduced the restriction that Further / Spec can both be done.

@Pi: My Physics teacher actually said exactly the same thing last year. He was contemplating having two classes, with specialist students in one, and MM students in the other. This would allow him to have a more mathematical version of physics (kinematics/work done by area and such) compared to the 'main' MM stream.

[Hancock]

I don't think that there is enough overlap between them to warrant letting students chose one. I mean you could say the same thing about letting "smart people" do "easy" subjects. I mean you could say people who do specialist shouldn't be allowed to do food tech because it's "easier".

It's not really the same thing, although your argument and metaphor does make sense. Specialist is nothing like Food Tech, however Further and Specialist both come under the umbrella of Mathematics.

[Quantum.Mechanic]

Yeah. But for students like me who prefer all maths and science, it provides us with a big advantage to boost up our ATAR Scores.

I'm saying that many just use it as an easy way out of getting a high ATAR Score. For example, getting a 50 in Further, and a 37 in Specialist meant that I had approximately 2 50 scaled scores, compared to the 43 from Methods in Year 11. The increment for methods was 43 raw, meaning that either way, it doesn't disadvantage anyone, it merely provides those that like mathematics with an alternative to getting a high ATAR Score. Simply because many of us, cannot get 50 in Specialist, nor methods, so we choose the easy way out

Pi is right about Physics though. The course is entirely pathetic. The Physics Unit 3 is pretty much chug and plug with minimal theory to be learned from the book, as just having an adequate cheat sheet means that you can pretty much do the entire exam, copying definitions word for word and still receiving full marks. Same with Unit 4, the entire course is extremely easy to complete with minimal difficulties for someone who simply listens to the teacher, and answers the questions.

[pi]

I dunno about Food Tech, I think I'd actually find that to be rather hard tbh :/ I was never good at subjects like that haha

[Conic]

I dunno about Food Tech, I think I'd actually find that to be rather hard tbh :/ I was never good at subjects like that haha

I think that too, which is why I included quotations. Since I have little to no interest in cooking I have no doubt that I would do worse in food tech than in specialist, even though it is usually perceived as easier.

[turk36]

There should just be two streams of 3&4, both of which stem from the same 1&2 - Further A - for students who are doing no other mathematics subjects; and Further B - for students who will complete Methods or Spesh.

[sin0001]

There should just be two streams of 3&4, both of which stem from the same 1&2 - Further A - for students who are doing no other mathematics subjects; and Further B - for students who will complete Methods or Spesh.

Then applying the same logic should there be two streams of English 3 & 4? (students who have completed Lit. & students who haven't?)

[brenden]

Then applying the same logic should there be two streams of English 3 & 4? (students who have completed Lit. & students who haven't?)

I don't think the Lit cohorts are big enough to matter. Although, they SHOULD be scaled against each other.

[e^1]

Not that it answers the question, but for me I am beginning to like doing some hard maths and so I didn't choose Further. Though this may be as I am not really into getting a high ATAR score but rather want some challenge, so I chose a mix of mathematical subjects and other things.

As to the question, maybe there are be students who choose to do Further & Spesh simply to learn more math content or do what they like - then I can't think what I would do more to restrict them further, besides having top 2 maths in primary four.

[excal]

Distorting what is otherwise an objective scaling algorithm based on perceptions is a dangerous thing.