5 Maths Gems #153

Welcome to my 153^rd gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Digitisers

Jonny Griffiths has shared a new collection of resources called Digitisers. These puzzles are aimed at late GCSE/early A level students. Topics include sequences, circle theorems, quadratics, differentiation, logs, trigonometry, simultaneous equations and surds.

2. GCSE Statistics
I’ve never taught GCSE Statistics but I know that teachers of this course often lament the lack of resources. So they’ll be pleased to hear that Ben Hamilton has started sharing a resourced scheme of work for Edexcel GCSE Statistics. I know that many teachers will be really grateful to Ben for sharing this.

Fully resourced SOW for @PearsonEdexcel GCSE Statistics under development:

Unit 1: https://t.co/VxIEp96seC

Unit 2: https://t.co/Avfn7CKhRy

Unit 3: https://t.co/P4sXcc4R75

More to follow: Preview of resources below 👇 pic.twitter.com/0Rw9ax9syW

— Ben Hamilton (@MrBenHamilton) July 7, 2020

3. Sequences Wordle
Wordle has been a big craze since Christmas and social media is filled with posts where people share their results. I have seen a number of excellent maths versions (like this one and this one). My favourite is this times table sequences version from MathsPad. It’s free to use and you must have a go to see how good it is. I played it with my ten year old and she really enjoyed it.

4. GCSE Booklets

Thanks to Richard Morley for sharing a very helpful collection of GCSE Revision booklets.

📢New resource alert!🎉

Been a bit quiet on the site recently, but I've collated all notes jotters so that they can be printed as a booklet, grouped by Foundation, Crossover and Higher, then by topic, download them at https://t.co/UD5GPGsLCM @mathsjem @missradders @Just_Maths pic.twitter.com/HL3VUjOf4U

— Richard Morley (@MrMorleyMaths) January 17, 2022

5. Tasks

Loads of great tasks have been shared on Twitter lately, including...

This task from @giftedHKO (I used this with Year 8 last week!). Students have to work out which shapes have the same perimeter.

Here's an interesting task from @SegarRogers which can be downloaded from @ChrisMcGrane84's wonderful website. It's fascinating to look at the range of questions here and how they can be classified.

@draustinmaths continues to share great resources, including this scaffolded task on rationalising the denominator.

In Gems 151 I featured @nathanday314's new website Interwoven Maths. Since then, Nathan has added more tasks to the site including tasks which interweave rounding with fraction and decimal arithmetic. 

 

Updates
There's lots going on!

I made free tickets available for #mathsted22 and all 120 of them went in two days. I'm really looking forward to this event! I had a few demands that I stream the Oftsed talk but I don't have permission from Ofsted to stream it. If people want to run a similar event in their own area, they can request an Oftsted speaker here. 

Yesterday I ran a 2.5 hour workshop on curriculum and depth at the MA/ATM London branch. Thank you to everyone who came, and thank you to the IoE for hosting and Japleen Kaur for organising. The ATM and MA have branches all over the country which provide free/cheap CPD for maths teachers, so do check out your local branch.

I also did a talk at #mathsconfmini about maths department improvement. It focused on the recent feedback that schools have received from Oftsed (and 'mocksted') inspections under the new framework. The recording is available to conference attendees here. 

I'm looking forward to presenting at the MA conference in April. I'll be speaking online on the first day. Tickets are available here.

Here are a few more things you may have missed:

• My video 'What secondary teachers should know about the Key Stage 2 maths curriculum' went down well - lots of departments have watched it together in their department meetings. 
• Mathematical Education on Merseyside has been running take-home maths competitions in February half term since the late 1970s. They attract about 2,000 entries annually, with Challenge aimed at Years 7 and 8, and Senior Challenge aimed at Years 9 and 10. Their 2022 competition is live now - visit their website to enter your students.
  
• Dan Draper - one of my favourite bloggers - wrote about circle theorems. 
• The Liverpool Maths School is running on-demand CPD for maths teachers, with a focus on enriching GCSE lessons with Key Stage 5 content. Information is here.
• On Twitter I shared some examples of exercises from my old post 'Equations Exercises' where I got a team of volunteers to type up parts of an algebra textbook from the 1950s. This set is a good example of interweaving two skills: expanding double brackets and solving linear equations:

I'll leave you with this problem from The Art of Problem Solving which was shared by @rinaldi6109. Find the value of k.