5 Maths Gems #154

Welcome to my 154^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Mixed Six

In Gems 153 I shared a resource from @SegarRogers which utilises Pointon and Sangwin’s task design taxonomy. There are more tasks like this on Chris McGrane's website. @mathsmrgordon has now created a large collection of tasks with a similar structure. These tasks focus on the key skills and topics from Edexcel's advance GCSE information. The full thread is here, and a couple of examples are shown below. Ben has also invited volunteers to make and share their own tasks using his template. Thanks Ben!

2. Maths Genie Mini Tests

Thank you to @mrnp4tel for sharing a great GCSE resource from Maths Genie that I've not seen before. I use Maths Genie all the time - it's a very user-friendly source of exam questions and past papers - but I'd never explored the resources section. He tweeted about the Target Tests which feature 20 question tests at four different difficulty levels: Foundation, Foundation (Grade 5), Higher (Grades 4 - 6) and Higher (Grades 7 - 9).

3. A Level Resources
Thanks to @pmyygrm for sharing the London Academy of Excellence's A level schemes of work and resources on TES. The resources contain numerous examples for each topic, with lots of space for students to take notes in lessons. Some questions have been adapted from exam papers and from Madas resources.

4. Ratio Booklet
Thank you to @ChrisMcGrane84 for sharing another excellent curriculum booklet. This one is on ratio - it was created by @ShivMcKenna55 and is hosted on Chris's website Starting Points.

5. KS2 Spot the Mistake

Thank you to @SarahFarrellKS2 for sharing copies of the full 2018 and 2019 Key Stage 2 reasoning papers that she has completed badly to show lots of misconceptions and common mistakes. Importantly, not all the answers are wrong. I find this is a really helpful strategy in 'spot the mistake' resources.

Updates

Here are a few things you might have missed:

• A number of teachers on Twitter have shared useful resources relating to the 2022 GCSE advance information. I'm not sharing these resources on my blog because I don't want to duplicate work being done elsewhere. Colleen Young has written a really helpful blog post collating the information and resources. Thanks Colleen!
• Did you see @MrDraperMaths' brilliant blog post about Cognitive Payload? It's a must-read.
• Puzzle of the Week is back! The competition started on Monday.
• I've been busy writing two presentations this week: one for the MA Conference which is in the Easter holidays, and one for my #mathsted22 event which takes place in two weeks. I'm delighted that I'll be welcoming 130 maths teachers to my school for an evening of CPD with myself and Steve Wren from Ofsted.
• My school is recruiting a maths teacher! It's a brilliant place to work - we're a science-specialist comprehensive school with excellent behaviour and attitudes. We will have Year 11 for the first time next year, and we'll be setting up our Sixth Form too, so there will be opportunities to teach A level the following year. It's an exciting time to join. We welcome applications from both new and experienced teachers. The closing date is 7th March. Apply here, or email me to discuss.
• Some of the resources in this post have a GCSE revision focus, so it might be a good time to remind you that I have an extensive collection of GCSE revision resources here. This includes a number of resources I have made myself, such as my revision mats which are suitable for students working at four different grade levels (Grades 1 - 3, Grades 3 - 5, Grades 4 - 6 and Grades 6 - 9).

I'll leave you with these puzzles for your students, shared by OCR on their hashtag #OCRmathsPuzzle.