Challenge within a Challenge: E=C?

There are 3 types of people in my view; one’s who are good at creative subjects, one’s who are good at logical and methodical ones like maths and science, and people who are equally good at both.

I am good at the creative subjects and my sisters are the ones who are equally good at both. At school I got two D grades at science and an E grade at maths. The E grade has been an issue ever since I got it in 2002 and it even stopped me studying journalism at central Lancashire University (even though the journalism course I did never once featured maths.)

To be honest I've been seeing how long I can get without having to retake maths, and I don’t think I've done too badly over a decade later. I use maths every day at work, so it’s not as if I’ve been avoiding it. I think I said it once and only once about retaking my maths GCSE to get it to a C grade. My Grandad and my Dad both remember me saying it and just like if I said I was going to lose weight, you’d always get questions asking how it’s going.

For years I've had the same question; when are you going to retake your maths? With the never ending job hunting I've endured since graduation, I've always put it off. But the questions are starting to grate, so I'm doing something about it.

You would think it would be easy to retake the GCSE, it actually isn't. At the local college you need a D before you can retake, which I find little odd and family members are a bit bemused by it, but those are the rules! The college offer life skills classes in maths which you can take in order to get up to the D grade in order to retake.

I had an assessment to see which level I could work for and out of 25 questions I got 23 correct, so something must have stuck! The tutor was equally bemused when he was filling out my form because for education I was one level away from the highest qualification level, by having a degree.

With doing the assessment I was now ready to start classes, and tonight I did my first class. We were learning about fractions, percentages and decimals and converting all of them. There were only a couple of bits I found a bit challenging, but the rest I could do before the class.

I started the course nine weeks in, so I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. The tutor has asked me if there are any troublesome parts in the stuff they covered prior to me starting, but on the list there’s nothing standing out in the list.

So the maths journey has begun and who knows I may get the all-important C grade. Maybe then I’ll feel fully smart.