15 April 2019

Foundation Tier Revision Resources

I've been teaching a fair amount of Foundation tier GCSE this year. It feels like there are fewer revision resources available for Foundation tier compared to Higher tier, so I've collected some together in this post for ease of access. There's nothing new here - it's all in my epic GCSE revision resources collection - but hopefully this post will remind teachers of some of the things that are available to use in the classroom in the last few weeks before exams start.

Ruler booklets
These booklets from tannermaths.co.uk were designed for the old GCSE but are still very useful. They contain loads of wordy questions, including a fair few on ratio and proportion. They are well presented and come with answers.
Revision mats
Everyone loves a resource printed on A3! There are a number of Foundation revision mats available from sources such as Access Maths, PixiMaths and Miss B's Resources. I recently used these from TES for key Foundation skills. I like it that they are editable - as I went through and worked out the answers I tweaked a few questions and changed the order a bit. I'm a big fan of editable resources!

I have also made my own set of revision mats with four different difficulty levels that you can download from TES: there's a calculator version 1, a calculator version 2 and a non-calculator version.
Also check out my 'workouts' for Foundation tier students - these are 'print budget friendly' revision activities that can be printed onto a single side of A4.

Confidence boosters
The maths team from Edexcel (@EmporiumMaths) have recently shared sets of 'Practice Tests: Aiming for 4'. These six papers comprise Grade 1- 3 questions from Foundation past papers in order of difficulty as found by students (ie they start with the questions that most students got right). These are intended as a confidence booster for students aiming for a Grade 4.

On Access Maths you can also find a set of 'Start with Confidence' resources which contain 'opening page' questions.

Booklets
TES user scottyknowles18 shared a set of key skills booklets for Foundation pupils. At work this year I was asked to make a PowerPoint to accompany his algebra booklet. I designed the PowerPoint to be used in form time interventions but it can be used in lessons too. Each section includes key points, a couple of examples for the teacher to go through, a diagnostic question and answers.
The maths team from Delta Trust have also shared Foundation 'Securing a Grade' Revision Booklets on TES.

Useful websites
CorbettMaths has 5-a-day activities (numeracy, foundation and foundation plus) plus practice questions, revision booklets and practice papers. Maths Genie has questions by topic too. MathsBot has GCSE revision tools where you can adapt resources so the questions are suitable for your students. MathsBox has loads of helpful resources for Foundation tier, including a couple of freebies: there's a Big Mistake activity and a Foundation relay.
Breakfast revision
Last year I made three sets of breakfast revision resources for Foundation tier students:

They are not designed for a specific board or exam series so can be used every year. They are intended to be printed on A3 and used as a warm up on the morning of the exam. I included editable versions (so you can remove the word 'breakfast' if you want to use them in class) and answers.
Topic tests and exam questions
Also have a look at what your exam board provides. For example a number of AQA exam questions over the last two years have been similar to questions seen in their collection of topic tests. So using questions from the topic tests in revision might be a good idea! And for Edexcel, the Emporium has a number of useful resources. Look in the GCSE folder marked 'Practice Papers & Questions' and you will find resources such as collections of crossover questions, one mark questions from Foundation papers and themed papers.

Self quizzing
If your pupils don't know their facts and formulae then they might find my Foundation Knowledge Quiz book useful. Schools can buy in bulk for £5 per book. These books are particularly helpful for pupils who would otherwise do nothing at home - it gives them a very easy-to-use resource for independent study.

Between exams
Given that this year we have a relatively short time back at school after Easter before exams start, I will probably go straight into mixed topic revision lessons (as opposed to the topic focused lessons I have been doing until now). I will particularly focus on non-calculator topics in the last week of normal lessons before their GCSEs start.  Between exams, when we will occasionally see pupils on the days they don't have exams, I will be using the resources that are published every year (by very helpful people) to revise the topics that haven't yet come up (I'm sure Adam Creen will keep track of these on his blog).

See my revision resources posts for more resources - plus there are loads more on TES. Good luck for the final few weeks with Year 11!






3 comments:

  1. Thanks Jo! I'm teaching Foundation this year after years of Higher and this is a great help!

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  2. This is great.
    I particularly love math genie and www.corbettmath.co.uk too. Both websites have lots of practice questions, helpful videos and five a day worksheets to print out. I like to show the videos to my low ability set in math class and get them to do the numeracy five a day questions for homework each week in addition. Additionally I know that mathgenie now have started doing math videos as well, did you know that? I have even used some of the handy teaching resources available on TES too in my weekly revision sessions for all of my students.

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