How to Get a Grade 4 in GCSE Maths

The standard pass — and how to get there with the right approach.

Why grade 4 matters

Grade 4 is the standard pass in GCSE maths. It's the minimum most colleges, sixth forms, and employers will accept. If you don't get a 4, you'll be required to resit maths alongside whatever else you're studying post-16. So for a lot of students and parents, grade 4 is the target — and it's a perfectly reasonable one.

In 2025, about 17.4% of students achieved exactly a grade 4, and around 56.2% of all students scored a 4 or below. So if you're aiming for a 4, you're in very common territory. This isn't an elite target — it's an achievable one, and the difference between a 3 and a 4 is often not ability but consistency.

On the Foundation tier in June 2024, the grade boundaries were:

  • AQA: 157 out of 240 (65%)
  • Edexcel: 147 out of 240 (61%)

That means you need roughly two-thirds of the marks on Foundation. You don't need to get everything right, but you do need to be solid across the core topics. There's less room for gaps than at grade 3.

The difference between a 3 and a 4

I've worked with a lot of students sitting right on this boundary, and in my experience, the difference between a grade 3 and a grade 4 is rarely about ability (this applies to most grades, to be honest). It's about gaps and consistency. If you're currently working at a grade 3 level and the content below feels like a stretch, it's worth starting with my guide for grades 1 to 3 and building up from there.

It's very rare that a student at grade 3 has predictable gaps in their knowledge. Normally, they're great at some things and have completely forgotten others - even things which are typically perceived to be "easier". That's because it's not about the difficulty of the concepts, it's just because they've covered so many different things at school and never quite managed to consolidate all those things they were capable of mastering.

The grade 4 student has fewer of these gaps. They've been through the core topics systematically and can handle the standard question types without too many wobbles. They're not perfect — they still make mistakes, and there are topics towards the harder end of Foundation that they might struggle with — but their foundation is solid enough that the marks add up.

This is why my approach with students at this level is always the same: go through the textbook from the beginning, fill the gaps, and build fluency. It's not fancy, but it works. Lots of people are looking for shortcuts (and lots of people are trying to sell them) but it's the students who commit to this process and practise consistently who get the grade they're looking for.

What you need to master

The Foundation tier has five main areas, and for a grade 4, you need to be competent across all of them:

  • Number (25%): Confident with the four operations, fractions (adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing), decimals, percentages (of amounts, increase and decrease), and order of operations.
  • Algebra (20%): Solving one-step and two-step equations, substitution, simplifying expressions, and plotting straight-line graphs.
  • Ratio and proportion (25%): Sharing in a given ratio, simplifying ratios, direct proportion, and simple speed/distance/time problems.
  • Geometry (15%): Area and perimeter of rectangles, triangles, and compound shapes. Volume of cuboids and prisms. Angle rules (straight line, triangle, parallel lines).
  • Statistics and probability (15%): Mean, median, mode, and range. Reading and interpreting charts. Basic probability from two-way tables and frequency tables.

If you look at that list and feel confident about most of it, you're close. If there are chunks you're unsure about, those are the gaps to fill.

Find out where your gaps are

If you want a simple way to see where you currently stand, I recommend this free self-assessment and topic tracker. You'll need to save your own copy first (File → Make a Copy in Google Sheets). Select the Grade 1 to Grade 3 content, open each question set briefly, take a look at the questions, and give yourself a confidence score from 1 to 5 for each topic. Once you've worked through those three grades, you can see exactly where your gaps are and get to work. Spend most of your time on topics where you feel quite confident but haven't quite mastered — that's great for building confidence. On the days when you're feeling good, try some of the topics that are a little further out of reach. But always start with the lower grades first — don't move on to Grade 2 until Grade 1 is mastered, and don't move on to Grade 3 until Grade 2 is secure. That's the strategic approach.

How to get there — the textbook approach

I recommend the same thing to almost every GCSE student I work with: get a Foundation textbook and work through it in order, starting from chapter one. My favourites are the CGP Textbooks, because they've got plenty of detail and plenty of practice questions. Not the revision guides (they're good too, but best for the last few weeks).

I know that sounds tedious, and I know the temptation is to skip to the topics you're worst at. But maths is cumulative — topics build on each other. If your fractions aren't solid, your ratio work will struggle. If your basic algebra is shaky, you'll hit a wall with equations. The textbook sequence is designed so that each chapter builds on what came before, and working through it in order is the most reliable way to fill gaps you didn't even know you had.

For grade 4 students, you'll need to get through most of the Foundation textbook. The later chapters push into grade 5 territory, but everything up to that point is crucial. Remember: The easiest way to get a Grade 4 (or 5) is to make sure that you absolutely nail everything from Grades 1 - 3, not spend all your time wrestling with the hardest questions on the paper. Once you've got all the easy marks in the bag, then you can move on to the harder content. 

Supporting resourcesAll of these are great for additional practice, and for either notes or videos to help with a particular topic. They are not so good  for providing a structure for a start to finish programme, and that's typically true of free resources.

  • Corbett Maths: The 5-a-day worksheets are excellent for daily practice. The video tutorials are clear and well-paced. If you get stuck on a topic, there's almost certainly a Corbett Maths video that explains it.
  • Maths Genie: Grade-sorted questions with worked solutions and video walkthroughs. Very useful for targeted practice on specific topics.
  • CGP revision guides: Good for condensed summaries and quick-fire practice questions. Useful alongside a textbook, but not as a substitute for one.

Maths Made Easy: Great for detailed notes and additional practice

Daily practice

I cannot overstate this: consistent practice is the single biggest factor in whether a student gets a grade 4 or not. One or two hours, 2 or 3 times a week, working through textbook exercises or online questions at the right level, will do more for your grade than any amount of last-minute cramming. Your brain does a huge amount of subconscious processing, but it needs stuff to work on!

Treat it like going to the gym. You don't get fit from one massive session — you get fit from showing up regularly and putting in the work. The same is true for maths. Build a routine, stick to it, and the marks will follow.

Past papers — but not yet

Past papers have their place, and I do use them with my students — but only when the time is right. For a student aiming at a grade 4, I'd recommend saving past papers for the final 8 to 12 weeks before the exams.

Before that point, past papers are more likely to demoralise than to help. They test the entire syllabus, so if you haven't finished revising, you'll hit questions you can't answer and feel like you're not making progress. That's not a useful experience.

Once you've worked through the bulk of the textbook, past papers become much much more valuable. They help you:

  • Get used to the wording of exam questions (which can be tricky even when you know the maths)
  • Practise under time pressure — Foundation has three papers, each 1 hour 30 minutes
  • Identify any remaining gaps so you know exactly what to go back and revise

When you do past papers, mark them honestly and make a note of which topics you dropped marks on. Then go back to the textbook or a video and revise those topics specifically. Feedback is absolutely critical. You can find papers for all the major exam boards on my free past papers archive, and if you want a more detailed plan for the revision phase, I've written a full GCSE maths revision guide.

The role of a tutor

A good tutor is a guide, or a coach, but can't replace the student's own work. One hour a week with me won't transform your child's grade on its own. What it will do is provide structure, clear the roadblocks, and make sure the independent practice is focused on the right things. You can read more about how I work with GCSE students on my GCSE maths tutoring page.

My rule of thumb: don't invest in more tutoring hours until the student is doing at least two hours of independent practice per week. The tutoring session keeps them accountable and clears obstacles. The independent work is where fluency is built.

You're closer than you think

If you're currently at a grade 3, you are not far from a 4. The gap is usually a handful of topics that need tightening up, plus the consistency of practice to make sure you can perform reliably. And once you've secured that grade 4, you might be surprised how close a grade 5 is — many of my students end up pushing further than they originally thought possible.

The students I've seen make this jump are the ones who committed to a routine, trusted the process, and didn't try to take shortcuts. They worked through their textbook, practised daily, and saved past papers for when they were ready. It's not complicated, even if it is hard.

If you'd like help putting a plan together, I offer a free 30-minute introductory session where we can chat about where things stand and work out the most effective path to a grade 4, with no obligation to continue with sessions.

If you'd like help putting a plan together for a Grade 4, feel free to get in touch.

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