> That "maths refresher" was the entire Further Maths 'A' level syllabus. In two weeks. Those of us who had done Further Maths at school were fine. Those that hadn't were shell-shocked.

Heh, that reminds me of my first physics course in an under-graduate computing degree (in Romania). The curriculum was so well designed overall that this Physics course needed linear algebra concepts that would be taught halfway-through the semester in Algebra, integration along a surface and similar that would be taught at a similar in the Calculus course, and some Statistics I don't remember that would be only be taught in the second semester.

The prof's solution? He taught a 3-hour course covering all of the above, and considered that good enough for all future courses. This particular Physics course later went on to cover analytical mechanics (generalized coordinates, Lagrangians, Hamiltonians), electricity, general relativity, statistical thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics, all in a single semester.

Needless to say, 99% were happy they passed and couldn't tell you a single thing about any of these subjects a few minutes after the final exam.