Dates for the Diary

2015 has been the most eventful year of my teaching career to date. I returned to work from maternity leave in January and took on a Lead Practitioner role at a new school six months later. I continued to be a busy blogger and tweeter throughout the year and was chuffed that my efforts were recognised at the UK Blog Awards in April. During 2015 I attended numerous education events including maths conferences, TeachMeets, debates and my very own Christmaths party. Although it's tempting to write a long and rambling reflection of all the events of the year, instead I've decided to look at what 2016 has to offer. There's loads going on in the year ahead and this post lists a few highlights. Full listings can be found here.

January
Back to school and the chaos starts all over again. If your school is kind enough to let you out for a day, I reckon La Salle's National Maths Education Symposium on Thursday 21st January is worth a look. The programme is excellent.

I'm incredibly jealous of anyone who is able to attend the next Peterborough Maths Network event. They've only managed to line up the most awesome person in the maths education - Don Steward! This event takes place after school on 19th January and you'd be foolish to miss it.

It's also my birthday on 6th January... just saying.

February

It's a leap year! Did you see this tweet from Matt Parker? I ♥ numbers.

Sure, 2016 is not divisible by 5 like 2015, but it is divisible by EVERY OTHER SINGLE-DIGIT NUMBER. 4th time ever. Max possible until 2520.

— Matt Parker (@standupmaths) December 27, 2015

March and April
Have you noticed how short the Spring Term is? Easter falls early in 2016. As a result there's an awful lot going on during March.

The National Mathematics Teacher Conference (#mathsconf6) in Peterborough on Saturday 5th March will be a highlight. I've already booked my train ticket and my hotel room. I love these conferences. If you haven't attended one before then read my write-up of the last conference to get an idea of what goes on.

I'm also really looking forward to Julia Smith's (@tessmaths) Easter Maths Camp which is on 28th and 29th March in sunny St Osyth, Essex. There's all sorts of lovely activities lined up - contact Julia if you want to get involved.

As always, the ATM and MA are holding their conferences over the Easter holidays. The ATM's Easter Conference 2016 is in Warwick from Tuesday 29th March to Friday 1st April and the MA Annual Conference 2016 takes place in Oxford from Friday 1st April to Sunday 3rd April. Both have excellent programmes. Hopefully when my children are older I'll be able to attend one of these residential conferences.

A couple of weeks into the Summer Term is Maths in the Sticks. This event is organised by Stuart Price (@sxpmaths) and is aimed at A level maths teachers. It will involve CPD and a roast dinner at a beautiful boarding school in the Surrey Hills. I've tried the roast dinner - it's delicious! The event programme sounds very good too - I'm looking forward to this one.

May
We're all far too busy with our exam classes to attend events during May...

June
The second half of the summer term is best time of year for CPD. Most of us have some gained time after our exam classes leave so things are a bit less hectic. To start we have researchED Maths and Science on Saturday 11th June in Oxford. No doubt this will be outstanding event - tickets are likely to sell out quickly.

I'll be speaking at LIME Oldham on 20th June - if you're not familiar with LIME events then do check out their website for information. A week later I'll be attending the National Mathematics Teacher Conference (#mathsconf7) in Manchester, and a week after that is the MEI Conference in Bath. Last year I presented at the MEI Conference and absolutely loved it (see my write-up here) so if you get the chance to go, I really recommend it.

July and August
I'll be presenting on A level resources at the annual FMSP Key Stage 5 Teachers Conference in London on 8th July - details to follow.

Tom Bennison (@DrBennison) is organising an East Midlands KS5 Mathematics Conference on 9th August at the University of Nottingham. With the upcoming implementation of new Key Stage 5 specifications, A level CPD is going to take centre stage over the next two years. Tom is planning what sounds like an excellent event - I will share details when they are announced.

September to December
#mathsconf8 takes place in Manchester on 1st October - it's a bit of a trek for me but I wouldn't miss it!

I'm sure there'll be lots more Autumn Term events announced closer to the time. Maybe even a #christmaths16... And (fingers crossed) I really hope to organise something when the new maths gallery opens at the Science Museum. Watch this space.

Quick - get these dates in your diary now!

Throughout the year there's loads of fantastic local events organised by bodies such as the Further Maths Support Programme and the Maths Hubs. I haven't listed everything here, but there's always plenty going on for maths teachers so do find out what's happening in your area.

I look forward to seeing you at an event in 2016.

Happy New Year!

Top of the Blogs

This post recommends ten maths education blog posts from 2015.

Post: Taking Back the F Word
Author: Ed Southall (@solvemymaths)
Why you should read it: To see that you don't need gimmicks to make maths fun. You just need really good questions.

Post: US vs. UK: Mathematical Terminology
Author: Ben Orlin (@benorlin)
Why you should read it: Because it's both entertaining and interesting, like all of Ben's posts.

Post: Maths everywhere
Author: Bodil Isaksen (@BodilUK)
Why you should read it: Because it gives you a taste for how maths is taught at Michaela. It's unusual, controversial and fascinating.

Post: 10 things you might not have realised about the new Primary Maths curriculum
Author: Michael Tidd (@MichaelT1979)
Why you should read it: It's essential that Key Stage Three teachers know what's going on at Key Stage Two.

Post: In Praise of Being Boring
Author: Dani Quinn (@danicquinn)
Why you should read it: How would you feel if your students described your lessons as boring? Does it matter? Dani's perspective is interesting - she describes "a satisfying boredom that is part of the journey to a worthwhile goal".

Post: The Pain of Problem Solving...

Author: Andy Lyons (@mrlyonsmaths)
Why you should read it: To learn about Andy's practical approach to developing problem solving skills in reluctant students.

Post: A Singapore-UK standoff: textbook round
Author: Bodil Isaksen (@BodilUK)
Why you should read it: To see how different two maths textbooks can be.

Post: Maths Mindsets: My Y10s
Author: Tom Sherrington (@headteacherguru)
Why you should read it: You will find yourself nodding along, picturing your own students for each of the mindsets Tom describes. We have our work cut out...

Post: Supercalifragilistic First Time I Taught Quotient
Author: Dan Draper (@MrDraperMaths)
Why you should read it: Dan's honest and witty style of writing is always a pleasure to read. "The way I was slapping some maths words on the board at the start of a lesson, never to be seen or heard of again, does nothing to improve literacy". His new approach to literacy in maths lessons is spot on.

Post: 10 reasons why it's a great time to be a maths teacher
Author: Ed Southall (@solvemymaths)
Why you should read it: To remind yourself why being a maths teacher is awesome. Read it the day before the start of term and you'll turn up at work raring to go.

✭✭✭✭✭

I've limited myself to ten posts here, but I could keep going all day! The fact that most of my favourite bloggers aren't even mentioned here is testament to how much excellent maths blogging has taken place during 2015. I learn so much from these blogs and I really appreciate the time and effort that is put into sharing insights and ideas.

If you want to start reading education blogs but you don't know where to start, I recommend following the Maths Echo Chamber (@MathsEcho) which automatically shares links to all new UK maths blog posts.

I hope you've found my list helpful. I'd love to know what your favourite posts from 2015 were, so please share!

#christmaths15

It's hard to know what to write about #christmaths15 because I'm still a bit overwhelmed by it all.

A few months ago I decided that I wanted to run an event which would provide an opportunity for teachers to talk about the new GCSE. Importantly, I didn't want it to be an event just for tweeters - I wanted it to be open to anyone who had an interest. Originally I was thinking of a cross between a TeachMeet and #pieandmaths (which I wrote about here) - a combination of CPD and a social event. I've always enjoyed throwing parties and Christmas seemed like the ideal time to do so.

Once I started contacting potential venues, I realised that it was going to be far more difficult than I originally thought. I couldn't find a large, well-located pub function room that had AV facilities and was available for free hire for a whole afternoon and evening. I searched high and low and was about to give up when I stumbled upon Pause Bar, which is a function venue located in the City of London - my stomping ground when I worked in Banking.

I was required to order food in advance which meant I had to charge for tickets - this wasn't ideal because I was hoping to make it a free event, but I decided to take a gamble that people would be willing to pay. I booked it at half-term, putting down a hefty deposit which wiped out my meagre savings. I instantly regretted it! The pressure was on.

Over the following month my husband was subjected to constant updates - 'I just sold another ticket! Wooo!' and 'I haven't sold a ticket in 2 days! This is a disaster' - that kind of thing. Thankfully it did sell out pretty quickly, showing that there is strong demand for events like this. I ended up with a waiting list.

I had a lot of decisions to make - speakers, food, drinks, music, puzzles, quizzes, handouts... My budget was pretty tight so it was all very DIY (it took forever to print the programmes on my home printer!). I did my best to make it all as slick and professional as possible. AQA very kindly provided materials relating to the new GCSE (and free pens!). Emma Bell (@El_Timbre) provided puzzles and Rob Beckett (@RBeckett_Yd) brought along copies of Chalkdust Magazine. I couldn't afford a DJ so did a playlist myself, and I wrote my own quiz (which is here, if you'd like a go! Answers available on request). From the £25 ticket price, £2.50 went straight to EventBrite and around £22 went on food, drink and service. With the remainder I bought everyone a Lindt teddy!

Thankfully things went well on the day. The venue looked pretty, sparkling with Christmas lights. The welcome drinks went down well and the food was very nice. People seemed to have a good time. Most importantly, the CPD was very well received. There were a couple of problems -  the wifi was intermittent and some people couldn't see the screen from their seat. I'm hugely sorry about these things. Otherwise I think it was a success. I was incredibly anxious in the weeks leading up to the event so I'm very relieved it went quite smoothly on the day.

The speakers were brilliant. I knew they would be. I am hugely grateful to all of them. I will write another post about the key ideas I took from their sessions, and I will share their presentations if I can.

Who bought me a Jägerbomb at 6.30pm?! You know who you are! I had no chance of surviving the night in one piece after that. Mel (@Just_Maths) was on top form too, getting in round after round of Baby Guinness. For the last couple of hours there were only a dozen of us left but we had such an awesome time.

Tweeters enjoying the party

Sambuca with Tom Quilter of pinpointlearning.co.uk. (Rob Smith photoboming!)

I really enjoyed chatting to so many lovely people - I can't list them all here but they know who they are. Huge thanks to my friends who helped me set everything up at the start of the event, those who bought me drinks and those who called me a taxi at the end of the night. Thank you also to everyone who either came to the event or supported me in some way (particularly my long-suffering husband!).

I was given a card which was signed by my guests - I'm incredibly touched by this. I will treasure it.

I can't make any promises that I'll run another event next year! At times I was really stressed about it all. It was certainly the biggest project I've ever taken on. Hosting a party is hard work and at times I said 'never again', but I know what I'm like - I can't resist! I'm not sure about the venue though, and the jury's out on whether it will be summer or Christmas. Watch this space!

Finally, here's a Storify of the tweets from before, during and after the event. It's lovely to read through and see how much people enjoyed themselves. I'm really chuffed.

Merry Christmas everyone! From a very tired but happy @mathsjem.

5 Maths Gems #45

Hello and welcome to my 45^th gems post. This is where I share five maths teaching ideas.

1. Circumference
Don Steward has been writing lots of brilliant posts lately so do keep an eye on his blog. I love two of his recent posts - Pi Development and Circle: Introducing Circumference. The latter features animations such as this:

and a really nice set of circumference questions.

2. Pinpoint Learning
Causing quite a stir on Twitter over the last two weeks, @tom_quilter's new website pinpointlearning.co.uk provides students with personalised question booklets based on exam results. It's perfect for after a mock exam. You simply upload students' marks and the website automatically produces individual booklets featuring question on the topics that students need to work on. The website is free and is set up for Edexcel papers, so if you've recently done an Edexcel mock then do give it a go. I've seen many tweets from teachers who've already tried it and speak very highly of it.

3. Five Minute Mock Analysis
When you return mock exams to students you might like to use this excellent Five Minute Mock Paper Analysis from @MathedUp. The file is editable so you can customise it for your school.

4. C4 Integration
I'm teaching C4 integration to my Further Maths class at the moment. We've just done Volumes of Revolution and I enjoyed making use of props to explain the concept. Thanks to an idea from Chris Smith (@aap03102), I used paper decorations to demonstrate how a solid is formed when a plane is rotated around the x axis.

I used these alongside gifs such as those shown below.

I also enjoyed using constant characters for the first time. This is an idea from @edenspresence that I featured back in Gems 22. Students who forget the 'plus c' in their answers are asked to decorate a constant character. Hopefully this will encourage them not to forget again and will make an interesting display for the classroom wall. Here's a couple of examples of what my students came up with:

5. Snowflakes
These Star Wars snowflake designs are brilliant and even feature characters from the latest films.

Here's a video about how to fold them:



If you're planning to do some snowflake activities at school in the last week of term then it's a great opportunity to talk about fractals - read Gems 16 for more on this.

Snowflakes can be a bit tricky to make so you might like these Paper Snowflake Cutting Tips. And this video (shared by @WycHighMaths) from Vi Hart is awesome:

It's only one week until #christmaths15! How exciting. You can still buy evening tickets if you want to join us for the party. The party includes a maths quiz, puzzles, food and a disco - partners and friends are very welcome.

If you teach Year 10 then do check out my recent post about real-life graphs.

Right, I have mock marking to do and Christmas cards to write so I better get on. I'll leave you with this nice question from @OCR_Maths - what fraction is unshaded?

New GCSE: Real Life Graphs

I have a feeling that I still haven't identified all the new GCSE content. This makes me nervous. I glanced through a textbook last week and spotted a few topics that aren't on my list. For example, I know there's new content for quadratic graphs, but I didn't know that students will also be required to identify the roots of cubic graphs (see example question below). The specification simply says 'recognise, sketch and interpret graphs of ... simple cubic functions'. Previously students have only been required to recognise the shape of cubics - roots didn't come up until A level. Now I've spotted this content in the textbook, I'll need to adjust my plans to ensure I have time to cover this at some point in the next 18 months. The time pressure is increasing.

A question from Edexcel GCSE (9 - 1) Mathematics: Higher Student Book 

Real Life Graphs
I've just taught linear graphs to my Year 10s. My scheme of work tells me that I now have to teach 'real life graphs'. But what does that mean? In this post I will attempt to clarify what comes under this title.

The previous GCSE specification said that students had to 'construct linear, quadratic and other functions from real-life problems and plot their corresponding graphs'. Examples included conversion graphs, 'ready reckoners' (whatever they are...) and distance time graphs.

Here's the relevant extract from the new specification:

The wording is different to the previous specification but it's broadly the same content, with perhaps more emphasis on interpreting contextual graphs. AQA's excellent Teaching Guidance gives us a more detailed description:

There's a lot here! The first four points follow on from linear graphs - for example students will have to interpret a y-intercept as a fixed charge. AQA gives this example question:

There's some great new resources for this kind of graph in AQA's Bridging Unit: Resource Pocket 3. The support provided by AQA is fantastic.

Modelling

The most common examples of 'graphs showing real-life situations in geometry' are those that model water flow. In AQA's sample assessment materials (Question 23 in Higher Paper 3) students are shown a graph representing the depth of water in a container over time. They are asked to identify the corresponding container from a selection (shown below). They are then asked to estimate a rate of change, requiring them to calculate the gradient of a tangent to the curve.

It's worth spending a couple of lessons developing the skills required for the first part of this question (ie identifying the correct container). Thankfully there's plenty of good resources for this topic.

In previous years I've used a 'filling up a bath' card sort (I adapted this from a treasure hunt I found on TES). I don't often use card sorts but I remember this one working well. There's also a good real life graph card sort from Nuffield.

I'm really keen to use Desmos Water Line - this is an online lesson in which students graph the rate at which containers fill with water. They also create their own containers to graph. Desmos lessons are absolutely brilliant so if you have access to tablets or computers then do give it a try. For me it will be a rare but worthwhile visit to the IT Room.

The classic Red Box is full of excellent graphing activities - it's a shame that the image quality isn't great.

Kinematics Graphs
Although I'm teaching real life graphs next week, I'm planning to leave kinematic graphs until I teach compound measures. This will then lead onto rates of change and area under a graph, which I've already blogged about. It doesn't make sense to do kinematic graphs before teaching speed.

We have plenty of resources for distance time graphs. AQA's Bridging Unit has some good questions (extract above). Interpreting Distance-Time Graphs from the Mathematics Assessment Project is excellent. I also like this commentary activity from Transum - The Hurdles Race.

I don't have much on speed time graphs, apart from those listed in my post about finding the area under a graph and those available from Toticity's Mind the Gap Maths Toolbox.

Exponential Graphs
The Higher Tier specification includes contextual exponential graphs. An example question from my Edexcel textbook is shown below. I plan to cover this kind of graph when I teach growth and decay (eg compound interest) next year.

My Plan
Next week I'm teaching 'real life graphs', but what exactly will I teach? Having looked through the new GCSE specification, the sample assessment materials, AQA's Teacher Guidance and a couple of new GCSE textbooks, I now have a clearer idea of what I need to cover. It's taken a lot of effort to determine that I need to do a lesson or two on contextual linear graphs and a couple of lessons on modelling. I'll come back to kinematic graphs, rates of change and areas under graphs after I've done compound measures. I just hope I'll have enough time to cover everything.

Proportional graphs also seem to come up a lot in the new GCSE. Often a context is given in the question. I'll teach these in January when I cover ratio and proportion. @fmaths42 recently wrote a useful post about these graphs which is worth a read.

I hope that this post has been helpful in clarifying the GCSE content on real life graphs. Do let me know if I've missed anything. Don't forget I have a whole page of new GCSE support here.

5 Maths Gems #44

Hello and welcome to my 44^th gems post. This is where I share maths teaching ideas I've seen on Twitter.

1. Problems by Topic
I've often featured links to problem solving resources in my posts but these are rarely organised by topic. This means we have to trawl through mixed packs of problems to find something suitable for our lessons. Bravo to Leanne Shaw (@LeanneShawAHS) for creating a very helpful new website of problem solving activities grouped by topic. This growing collection includes both full lessons and shorter tasks. The picture below shows the resources listed under 3D Shapes so you get an idea how this website works. It's well worth exploring.

2. Concept Maps
Thanks to Greg Coleman (@MrK5Math) for sharing his Concept Maps which are designed to help students develop their understanding of mathematical vocabulary. Have a read of Greg's post for more on this, including templates.

Concept maps by Greg Coleman

3. Exam Skills
Thanks to @thefeelosopher for sharing the interesting resource pictured below. This is used to analyse the skills that contribute to students' success in maths GCSE exams. I've not seen anything like this before and thought my readers might be interested as it raises some discussion points.

I wonder whether a similar analysis might be helpful in Year 7 - for example at the end of the first term students could be given feedback against criteria such as:

• Do they know their times tables? 
• Is their handwriting legible? 
• Do they ask for help when stuck? 
• Do they make good notes in class? 
• Do they do sufficient practice in class? 

This would help teachers and parents identify potential barriers to progress. Do let me know if your school does something like this.

4. Puzzles 
I love the excellent puzzles that Emma Bell (@El_Timbre) has been sharing. Check out her blog to see the collection.

5. Lost Questions
Back in Gems 18 I featured a lovely idea for teaching factorisation - this was taken from Chris Smith's (@aap03102) newsletter. He puts something like this on the board:

When the class arrives he demands to know who rubbed the questions off the board. When no-one confesses he asks his students to figure out what the questions were.

Last week Michael Allan (@mrallanmaths) tried this activity and found it worked well - he shared a picture of his board on Twitter. 

This prompted Keith Morrison (@MrKMorrison) to try the same idea for division and multiplication.

During #mathsTLP on Sunday there was a discussion about other topics that this might work for. There were some really good ideas - I particularly like the suggestion that this could be used when introducing integration in C1.

Update
I wrote a review of some resources for new GCSE topics - if you teach Year 10 and you missed it then do have a look.

I also updated my mathsy gifts page in time for Christmas.

I attended the Debating Education event at Michaela on Saturday. It was an interesting day and all the debates were thought-provoking. The Andrew Old vs Bruno Reddy debate on mixed ability was particularly relevant to maths and is something I do intend to blog about at some point.

Tickets for the CPD element of my Christmaths Party have sold out. You still have a few days left to buy tickets for the evening party - join us for a fun night of mathsy merriment.

School
School is going well, though very busy - I'm incredibly lucky to have two Inset days coming up, the second of which is a 'Christmas shopping' day off (to make up for an extra Inset that was added at the start of term). It's perfect timing for a break.

I'm really enjoying teaching Year 10 - we had a good go at all the new sequences GCSE content. I ended the topic with these two puzzles from @jase_wanner which worked very well. In the first activity students have to fill in the gaps and in the second activity students are looking for the odd one out.

Year 11 is my big challenge because they're doing Linked Pair GCSE which has a lot more content than normal GCSE. This content (Flow Charts, AER, Linear Programming etc) is new to me. I only see my Year 11 class three times a week which doesn't give me enough time to teach all the content in sufficient depth. I really am feeling the time pressure and have never taught topics so quickly before. Tight time constraints don't allow for effective teaching so I'm very pleased that my school is looking to increase the allocation of maths on the timetable next year. As a result I think we'll probably be looking to recruit new maths teachers so if you fancy coming to work with me (based in Epsom, Surrey) then do get in touch.

And finally...
Prompted by some recommendations I read on Twitter, I'm very much enjoying playing the excellent Sumaze puzzle app on my phone at the moment. I'm also really looking forward to going to Just for Graphs this weekend, and am very grateful to my husband for offering to come with me.

I passed half a million views of my blog last week - thanks very much for reading!

I'll leave you with this lovely visualisation of prime factorisation which was shared on @edfromo's brilliant Google Plus.

Resources for New GCSE Topics

If you follow my blog then you'll know that over summer I spent a lot of time setting up a new GCSE support page. In doing so I found that there are some topics (such as Error Intervals and Frequency Trees) which currently have very few teaching resources.

Free vs Subscription Resources
The resources I recommend in my libraries are all available for free. The teachers behind free websites like m4ths.com and Corbett Maths are adding new GCSE content all the time. The exam boards are also being very helpful - I've already made use of both AQA and OCR's excellent new resources.

There's also a number of high quality resource providers who charge a small subscription fee. These include MathsPad, MathsBox, Teachit Maths and Just Maths. These subscriptions are well worth considering. The picture below shows an extract from a MathsPad activity that I used yesterday with my top set Year 10 - it's a great activity but it's only available with a subscription (£3 per month).

Of course it should be your school that pays for any subscriptions, not you. I know school budgets are tight, but if your department doesn't have any new GCSE maths textbooks then it does need to ensure that teaching resources are available.

Toticity
Last week I discovered a company called Toticity. My eyes lit up when I saw that they're selling a 'Mind the Gap Maths Toolbox' which is full of resources for new GCSE topics. I was particularly pleased to see that one of their free samples is on Iteration - this a topic for which resources are few and far between.

In this post I provide a review of the Toolbox, which is available to your school for a one-off payment of £95 + VAT.

Sequences
I've just finished teaching the new sequences content - it was very enjoyable. There's some great sequences resources listed in my algebra library, but when I taught triangular numbers and 'Fibonacci-type sequences' I couldn't find any resources at all. It's a shame I didn't have the Toticity Toolbox last week because there's a lovely Fibonacci worksheet in there, plus some nice activities for triangular numbers.

Fibonacci-type sequence questions
from the Mind the Gap Maths Toolbox

Under-resourced topics
Under-resourced topics such as Frequency Trees, Error Intervals and Invariant Points are all covered in the Mind the Gap Maths Toolbox - extracts from these worksheets are shown below. What a relief to finally have some resources for these topics!

Compound Measures
Compound measure worksheets are presented as a series of proportionality puzzles. Students start with puzzles like the example shown below - here students are told that the horizontal functions must be the same and the vertical functions must be the same.

This leads onto speed problems, such as the example shown below.

We are also given both density and pressure problems, which follow the same format.

I like this logical approach to proportional thinking, it reminds me of ratio tables.

Area under a Graph
In August I wrote a post about finding the area under a graph. In my post I talked about using the Trapezium Rule to find the area under a curve, but I didn't mention graphs like the example pictured below.

This doesn't require the Trapezium Rule but does require that students either know how to calculate the area of a trapezium or realise that they can split the area into a rectangle and a triangle. The Mind the Gap Maths Toolbox provides a preliminary worksheet to help students develop the necessary skills - an extract is shown below. They use shapes before they move onto graphs. I like this.

Diagrams and Scaffolding
The worksheets in the Mind the Gap Toolbox contain a lot of algorithmic diagrams. Workings have to follow a defined structure. For example the format below is used for all the questions on finding the midpoint of a line.

Another example is shown below - this is taken from a rounding worksheet. I've not seen this approach before. In order to use this worksheet in a lesson on rounding I'd probably have to use this representation throughout my teaching of the topic. Instead I use a straightforward number line and I'm not sure I want to change that.

Have a look at Page 2 of this free sample resource on perpendicular lines to see what I mean about the use of lots of algorithmic diagrams. These approaches are interesting but I'm not sure they will appeal to everyone.

Design
I like the design of all the worksheets in the Mind the Gap Maths Toobox - they are user-friendly and well formatted. Answers are provided. There's little in the way of problem solving or stretch and challenge - these worksheets are very much designed for fluency practice. I'll use these worksheets in addition to (but not instead of) rich tasks that develop problem solving skills.

The diagrams and flowcharts used throughout most of the worksheets provide a lot of scaffolding. This makes some of the challenging new content more accessible, for example through the use of grids for expanding triple brackets. The approaches used (the very distinctive methodologies) might not appeal to everyone but are worth a look.

I'm very pleased that I have a new set of practice worksheets and am really looking forward to getting stuck in with all the new GCSE topics. Even iteration! Do have a look at toticity.co.uk for free samples, a list of new topics and an order form.