GCSE 9 - 1 Revision Resources

I published a post in March 2015 about Higher GCSE revision resources. Although the GCSE specification has changed, the resources in that post are still helpful. Today's post contains additional resources which were designed for GCSE 9 - 1.

If you're looking specifically for Foundation tier resources, then this post provides a good summary.

Practice papers
All four awarding bodies have published numerous sets of practice and past exam papers. Given that the differences between exam board specifications are minimal, we are able to use 9 - 1 papers from every exam board. Don't forget that old GCSE papers - including intermediate tier papers - are still helpful too.

If this isn't enough, then don't worry - there are plenty more practice papers available. For example Churchill Maths papers are reliable and high quality. The Higher tier papers are particularly good for stretching students who are working at a Grade 8 or 9. You can check out their free sample papers on their website. They're pretty challenging. ZigZag Education also sells packs of practice papers to keep your students busy! Again, free sample papers are available on their website.

1st Class Maths produces free, high quality practice papers. 

For £6 students can buy a pack of 6 practice papers from CGP (these are much cheaper for schools to buy in bulk directly from CGP). Practice paper books are also available to buy from various publishers.

Keep an eye on JustMaths, Corbett Maths and 1st Class Maths between the GCSE exams because they will probably produce 'best guess' papers after Papers 1 and 2 have been taken place. 

Revision by topic
Topic tests provided by AQA and Edexcel (through All About Maths and the Emporium respectively) are really helpful. OCR's check in tests are good too.

Maths Genie continues to be a very user-friendly website to point students towards. You'll find exam style questions by topic plus practice papers and mini tests.

Corbett Maths also has exam style questions by topic, practice papers, the classic 'five a day' and loads more. He has recently added a huge Ultimate Foundation revision video and booklet and Ultimate Higher revision video and booklet. 

Mini Target Tests from Maths Genie

Resources to purchase 
There are loads of resources that your students can buy through Amazon and other retailers. Often it's cheaper to bulk purchase and sell resources direct to students. Plus some schools will pay for them on behalf of their Pupil Premium students. CGP have summarised the content of their extensive range here. Pearson has a range of revision products too, as does Collins and Scholastic. I have written my own Knowledge Quiz revision books which are designed to help students memorise facts. You can bulk buy for schools through the publisher at £5 per book. If you're looking for revision apps, I recommend Key Cards.

Revision cards
9 - 1 revision cards are available to buy from The Mathematical Association, Corbett Maths, Collins and Pearson. Flash cards can be downloaded for free from tannermaths.co.uk.

Aimed at Grade 9

Here are some resources for students working at the top grades:

• Edexcel has Aiming for Grade 9 papers on the Emporium.
• 1st Class Maths has a great set of 'spicy questions' with lots of challenge.
• @melissamaths made a Higher revision task by converting all the most difficult questions from Edexcel GCSE exams into 'goal free' problems.
• There are revision workbooks for 'Grade 9 targeted exam practice' including one from CGP and one from Pearson.
• Collins have a good workbook for students working at Grades 7 to 9.
• m4ths.com has Grade 9 resources here.
• Daniel Griller has published a problem solving book for students working at grade 8 and 9.

The Churchill papers that I mentioned before provide the right level of stretch for these students. The AQA Additional Maths Pilot papers have good questions too.

Breakfast revision

• I have a set of Non Calculator Breakfast Warm Up activities and Calculator Breakfast Warm Up activities for both Foundation and Higher tier. These are intended to provide an accessible, stress-free warm up on the morning of the exam.
• I also have four shorter Breakfast Revision Workouts for Higher GCSE.
• Nikki (@mathszest) has shared a warm up PowerPoint aimed at students targeting a Grade 6. It’s a mixture of reminders and questions.
• Mel from Just Maths has made some useful 'Preparing for Your Maths Exam' slides containing last minute exam tips and information for students. It's probably best not to do this on the morning of the exam, but it's great for your last maths lesson.

Memorising facts
In addition to my Knowledge Quiz revision books which are specifically designed to help students memorise facts by repeated self-quizzing, here are some formula and fact quizzes:

• I made a 'Things to Memorise' sheet for Higher and Foundation which includes the facts and formulae that students need to learn because they're not on the formula sheet.
• Edexcel has a poster of formulae to learn - thanks to @MaxTheMaths for sharing his related gap fill activity here. 
• My adaptation of this formula quiz is available here. 
• Shareen Khaliq of Harris Chobham further adapted this quiz for her top set - you can download her version here. 
• I have also made a units quiz so students can check they know their unit conversions. 

My resources

• I've made four sets of revision mats each with four different difficulty levels. These resources suit students working at Grade 1 up to Grade 9 and are not tailored to a specific exam board or series.
• Non-calculator version
• Calculator version Set 1
• Calculator version Set 2
• Calculator version Set 3
• I also made another calculator revision mat (one for Higher, one for Foundation).
• I made a Higher GCSE Revision Quiz and my colleague Will adapted it for Foundation.
• Adam Smith (@Adam_SmithMaths) and I created two Higher GCSE workouts. These take a good 45 minutes and are very 'print budget friendly'. @onechriswhite created a tip sheet to go with the calculator workout.
• I have also made two Foundation workouts that can each be printed onto a single side of A4.
• I made 'Spot the Mistake' revision activities for Higher and Foundation tier in case you're looking for something a bit different.
• My resource Algebra Form Time Revision for Foundation GCSE contains form time interventions which are 20 - 25 minutes long and designed to be delivered by maths teachers using a booklet and PowerPoint.

Formula Sheet resources

When a formula sheet is provided it might be helpful for students to practise using it. Here are some helpful resources:

• 'Assessment Aid Tests' from @taylorda01 
• Formula sheet tasks and PowerPoints from @Just_Maths. 
• Formula sheet tests from OCR. 

Additional resources
Here are some more general revision resources that I've collected:

• 1st Class Maths has high quality revision resources for both AQA and Edexcel including the Ultimate Revision Booklet for both Foundation and Higher Tier.
• MathsPad has a page of GCSE revision worksheets for both Higher and Foundation Tier.
• Maths4Everyone has excellent topic booklets and topic review sheets.
• Sparx has shared free crossover workbooks. 
• Dr Austin has shared revision grids on her website draustinmaths.com.
• @gcse_math has collated all GCSE maths questions from June 2017 to November 2020 for Edexcel, AQA and OCR, organised by topic. 
• @OTHMaths has made a set of 'Aim for' revision grids for Foundation and Higher tier.
• I like the Revision Races from SimplyEffectiveEducation on TES. There's one for Grades 4/5, one for Grades 1 - 3 and one for Grades 6 - 9.
• SSDD Problems work really well for mixed topic revision.
• The maths team at Delta Trust have shared free revision resources including starters, booklets and grids.  
• Crashmaths.com has 9-1 practice papers and other resources. Their higher revision maze is great.
• Dr Frost has a collection of full coverage revision worksheets by topic.
• On MathsBot.com you'll find GCSE questions, revision grids and practice papers. 
• Access Maths has a page full of lovely 9 - 1 revision activities including revision mats, relays and mazes.
• I've collated a large collection of revision clocks - these were particularly popular in summer 2016. The idea works well for any qualification and age group.
• Sandra from MathsBox has shared a free Higher Revision Relay and Foundation Big Mistake activity. 
• Edexcel's Emporium has lots of revision resources for teachers to download, for example the One Marker Starters.
• AQA have both Topic Audits and Worded Problems Topic Tests on All About Maths.
• Foundation students can practise key skills in these helpful booklets from @SK18Maths. I have created a PowerPoint to accompany the algebra booklet.
• Foundation teachers might also find these Foundation Revision Mats from ttxjbw on TES helpful.
• Onmaths.com is a website where students can complete practice papers online.
• @BicenMaths shared a Revision PDF containing all publicly available Higher Tier Edexcel exam questions with video solutions.
• Third Space Learning have free GCSE revision mats and practice papers to download.
• @MrMorleyMaths has shared a set of Revision Workbooks featuring at least one past paper question on every topic.
• This 'one question per topic' checklist from andrewshorty on TES is a clever design for a revision checklist. 

Have a look at my post Structured Revision Lessons to see how I run my post-Easter GCSE revision lessons. I make a lot of use of Corbett Maths 5-a-day resources in these lessons.

Have I missed anything? Please share your resources in the comments below.

New GCSE: Trigonometry Questions

I've been teaching trigonometry to my top set Year 11 over the last couple of weeks. The content is much the same as it was on the old GCSE but the exam questions may now be considerably more challenging.

The only new trigonometry content in the Higher tier is 'exact values' (ie non-calculator trigonometry), which requires sound knowledge of surds.

I wrote a blog post about Teaching Trigonometry a couple of years ago and I have loads of resources listed in my shape library so I won't repeat it all here, but I just wanted to mention a few interesting GCSE trigonometry questions that I found when looking through the questions collated by Mel (@Just_Maths) here and here. If you teach Year 11s who will be taking the higher tier exams then you might find these questions helpful in your lesson planning.

1. Ambiguous case
I always teach the ambiguous case at GCSE but I've not seen many exam questions on it before. It's interesting to see this three mark question in AQA's higher Specimen Paper 3.

At first glance it seems like a straightforward Sine Rule question but we're told that the angle is obtuse, meaning students have to subtract their initial answer from 180.

I've spotted a couple of questions in the specimen papers that refer to acute and obtuse angles so I do think it's important to teach the ambiguous case.

2. Quadratics and surds
I recommend that you have a go at this question to see how challenging it would be for the vast majority of Year 11s.

It's from WJEC Eduqas's sample assessment materials (the last question on the higher non-calculator paper). It requires knowledge of the value of sin60 and cos60. It requires students to solve a quadratic equation and work with surds. They also have to recall the formulae for the Cosine Rule and area of a triangle using sine.

They get eight marks (and in my opinion deserve an automatic Grade 9!) if they get this question right.

3. Angles in parallel lines and similarity
Here's a four mark question from WJEC Eduqas's sample assessment materials.

There are two common approaches here: the first is to use angles facts to find the angles in triangle ABC, then use the Sine Rule to find side AB. The second approach is to use the Sine Rule to find ED, then use scale factor 1.5 to find AB.

4.  Angles of elevation
My students always struggle with trigonometry questions where they're not sure which angles are being referred to in the wording of the question (they find this particularly tricky when bearings are involved).

This four mark question from Edexcel's Specimen Set 1 just requires right-angled triangle trigonometry and use of a scale factor. So there's nothing particularly advanced here, but the challenge for some students will be knowing where the 52^o goes.

5.  Long!
This five mark question from Edexcel's Specimen Set 2 isn't particularly exciting but there's a lot to do here. Four steps in fact. It seems like a test of resilience at the end of 4.5 hours of maths exams.

In order to tackle this challenge, exhausted students need to remember and accurately apply all three of the trigonometric formulae that used to be provided in the GCSE exam. Harsh.

I don't want to scare anyone! There are plenty of straightforward questions in the sample materials too. See the questions by topic on JustMaths for more examples of new GCSE questions, ranging from simple to complex.

I've written a similar post about Pythagoras here.

I hope your students enjoy having a go at some of these interesting questions.

5 Maths Gems #66

Welcome to my 66^th update from the world of Maths EduTwitter. This is where I share some of the latest ideas and resources for teaching maths.

November is always one of the hardest months for teachers. I'm drowning in workload at the moment and I bet many of you are too. It's relentless. At times like this I'm grateful for the Twitter community and my lovely colleagues for their ongoing support and encouragement. I plan to write a blog post soon with some thoughts and ideas on workload. In the meantime, here are five slices of mathematical loveliness to cheer us up...

1. 3Blue1Brown
Thanks to ‏@johngreen for sharing YouTube channel 3Blue1Brown. I'll be using their Vectors video when I teach this topic in C4 later this year.



If you teach logs then you might be interested in their video 'Triangle of Power'.

2. Classroom Display

Thanks to Clarissa Grandi (@c0mplexnumber) for sharing this beautiful classroom display 'The Faces Behind the Formulae' which she made for an A level classroom.

I've added it to my displays page. 

3. Pinpoint Learning

Last year I featured Pinpoint Learning in Gems 45. It's a good time to mention this website again because most schools run mock GCSE exams in November or December. Pinpointlearning.co.uk provides students with personalised question booklets based on exam results. There's a sample booklet here. You (or your students) simply upload mock marks by question and the website automatically produces individual booklets featuring questions on the topics that students need to work on. I'm told that students love receiving their personalised booklets! I hope to try it out with my Year 11s next month.

Edexcel and AQA mock QLA sheets are on the website and you can currently upload results for all three mock papers for free during a one month trial. If you subscribe during the trial period then you get an annual subscription for £300.

Follow @pinpntlearning for updates.

4. SMILE
I'm teaching an interesting Year 7 class this year. Having not taught Year 7 for a number of years, I'm taking a fresh look at resources and approaches. I recently rediscovered SMILE worksheets. Here are a couple of examples:

Powers of Ten Flags

Coordinate Messages

Also, SMILE cards are available through STEM Learning - these are pretty old now so the quality of the copies vary. I remember learning maths from SMILE cards when I was in Year 7. Thanks to Martin Colley for arranging the cards by topic here.

5. Pythagoras with Blokus

I love this stop motion video from ‏@JoelBSperanza.

If you want to see more of Joel's stop motion videos or find out how to make your own, check out his blog post Stop-Motion Education.

Update

La Salle have announced some more dates for their conferences (including Wales and Scotland for the first time). I've added these to my conference listings and will try to attend as many as possible.

In case you missed it, my most recent post was the third in my series '5 Websites You Should You Know'. It featured Jonathan Hall's websites MathsBot.com, Flashmaths.co.uk and Formtimeideas.com.

I've also updated my recent post about Corbettmaths.com. Since writing it I discovered how good his textbook exercises are! I've found them so helpful for teaching Year 7 this week.

Extract from CorbettMaths.com 'Collecting Like Terms' 

I've sold 91% of my Christmaths tickets now (there are only 12 left!). I can't wait!

I'll leave you with one of Don Steward's latest resources, puzzle square. This one is for directed number practice.

5 Websites You Should Know... #3

This is the third in my series of posts about five maths teaching websites that you may not be familiar with. My previous posts were about Corbettmaths.com and MrCarterMaths.com.

Today I'm featuring MathsBot.com, a wonderful website packed full of tools for busy teachers. MathsBot.com is one of a set of websites from maths teacher Jonathan Hall (@StudyMaths).

Jonathan is constantly adding helpful new features to MathsBot. In this post I'll highlight a few of these features, but do visit MathsBot.com to explore the website yourself.

MathsBot holds a huge bank of questions which can be filtered by topic and displayed in numerous helpful formats:

• timed mini-whiteboard or starter questions
• differentiated questions (red/amber/green)
• GCSE style questions, displayed individually (example below) or in a revision grid
• printable practice GCSE papers (you choose the length, topics, difficulty etc)

There's also a worksheet generator where you can produce printable worksheets for a large range of topics.

MathsBot also has activities such as Four Operations Puzzle and Number of the Day.

Form Time Ideas
Formtimeideas.com was also created by Jonathan Hall. If you're a form tutor and you don't know this website, go and look at it right now! With this user-friendly website you can easily fill a 20 minute form time with quality activities - it works well with any year group, from Year 7 right through to Year 13. My Sixth Form tutor group enjoy it, and I often click on 'Name the Flag!' so they can do more of them! The content changes every day so form times require no planning whatsoever - it's a huge time saver for form tutors. It makes me sad that there are form tutors who needlessly worry about how to fill their daily form times because they've not heard of this website.

Flash Maths
I know you've already heard of FlashMaths.co.uk, but it's always good to be reminded of the classics. This website is another of Jonathan Hall's creations. There are so many great activities on Flash Maths, it's hard to know which ones to feature here.

Flash Maths includes activities that students can come up to the interactive whiteboard to complete, such as Drag and Drop Venn Diagrams.

It also includes tools that are helpful for teacher explanation, such as this Rotational Symmetry Demonstration.

Flash Maths has activities which students complete in their books or on mini-whiteboards. Memory Maths is one of my favourites - it works well with any age group. 

Shape Shoot is fun!

I have also used Equation Balance, Rounding Numbers and Substitution Grids in the past. Helpfully, Jonathan has made all the Flash Maths content available to download and run without an internet connection.

I really think that there should be a proper annual award ceremony for people who make outstanding contributions to maths education. The type of event with bow ties and sparkly dresses where people are properly thanked and congratulated for their successes... Until such a thing exists, this will have to do: Thank you Jonathan - your websites are brilliant, and a huge help to thousands of maths teachers and form tutors. We really appreciate all your efforts.

Look out for the next post in my websites series, coming soon...