31 December 2022

5 Maths Gems #165

Welcome to my 165th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. GCSE Revision
On The House Maths (@OTHMaths) shared a new set of GCSE revision resources. Their 'Aim for' revision grids are designed for both Higher and Foundation tiers.


I have added these to my GCSE Revision Resources page.

2. GCSE Further Maths
Thank you to @1stclassmaths who has now completed the Level 2 Further Maths page of his excellent website. The page features videos and topic booklets for all Further Maths topics beyond the regular GCSE specification. These are really high quality resources - I've been using them with my Further Maths class.



3. New Resources and Websites
Thanks again to @draustinmaths for continuing to generously share her resources. Her latest batch of functions resources were really helpful for my Year 11s in December. There are some great tasks on composite and inverse functions. 


@ChrisMcGrane84 shared a practice task on finding where lines and quadratics intersect the x and y axes


@markywillis63 has updated his A level website. Each topic now has a set of questions with gaps for students to fill in whilst either trying the questions or watching the videos. 



I was emailed by maths teacher Robyn who told me about the website physicsclassroom.com which is helpful for A level mechanics teachers. They have printable worksheets, online concept checkers, interactive tools, videos with questions and so on. One example is a self checking quiz about free body diagrams, with an accompanying video and a worksheet.

I also received an email from Sam Kordan who created a website with a colleague when they worked together at a SEND school: www.adamupmaths.com. It's a collection of songs, games, printable teaching models and more.


My readers will be pleased to hear that onmaths.com has started doing A level papers, and that gcsemathsquestions.co.uk has been updated with questions from November 2021. 

Thank you to all these generous maths teachers who have been working hard to create and share content in recent months.

4. Infinite Whiteboard
I've blogged before about the fantastic tools shared by @JakeGMaths at mathsuniverse.com. This includes a huge collection of worked examples and a skills grid generator. Jake has recently been working on his Infinity Whiteboard which is fantastic. You can paste an image of a task or student's work and then annotate it. It's also really easy to paste a PDF which comes up as an image. It's great for live modelling and you'll never run out of space! One thing I'll use it for is to review exam papers - it takes seconds to set up:


Previously we've copied and pasted every question into PowerPoint to review an exam paper, which I now realise wasn't a good use of our time!

The infinite whiteboard is incredibly easy to use. Do check it out.

5. All Ten
In the run up to Christmas I massively enjoyed completing the nerdle advent calendar. I've completed a nerdle puzzle every single day since February. It brings a little bit of joy to my mornings. When I recently tweeted to sing nerdle's praises, I had a reply from @druinok about All Ten which I hadn't seen before.

All Ten is a lovely game which gives your four different numbers every day, and you have to use those four numbers to make each number from one to ten. The interface is great - it's very engaging and easy to use. As well as being an enjoyable game for teachers (I now do it every morning, as soon as I've completed my daily nerdle!) it's also a good one to use in lessons - particularly when teaching the order of operations.


It reminds me a bit of the classic 24 Game.


Update
I've been super quiet on Twitter and my blog lately because, like so many others, I've been really unwell. But, just in time for the start of term, I'm starting to feel better now, and am looking forward to an exciting term ahead. At school we'll be running the Intermediate Maths Challenge, plus we're taking forty Year 10 students on a trip to see GCSE Maths in Action - and I'm delighted to have this trip funded by a grant from Jack Petchey

I'm looking forward to the conferences that are coming up. At La Salle's conference in Bracknell on 11th March I'll be speaking about Pythagoras. And at the Joint Conference of the Maths Subject Associations I'll be speaking about improving students' calculator fluency. This two day conference takes place at the University of Warwick on 3 and 4 April - I've you've not been to one of the residential Easter conferences before, I strongly encourage you to come along! Book by 31 January to receive the Early Bird discount.

My lovely team will be recruiting this term - we need a Key Stage 5 Coordinator to run A level maths, which we're launching for the first time this year. If you have A level teaching experience and you're looking for a new challenge in September, please contact me (resourceaholic@gmail.com). The job advert will be out soon.

I enjoyed attending Dr Frost's triannual drinks this week. It's always a pleasure to spend time with maths teachers.


Finally, check out my fantastic stickers! I searched high and low for some nice personalised stickers to buy my colleagues for Christmas - and when I found these, I bought some for myself too!



Happy New Year, and all the best for 2023.







6 comments:

  1. thara ravishanker1 January 2023 at 10:33

    You too. I like to use free resources from other sites like mymaths and skills workshop in addition to complement my existing collection of resources. I take a look in order to see what skills are covered by the resources on there. And I sometimes but not often use bbc skills wise resources to teach skills too. I find all three websites very helpful in terms of content etc.
    Seriously I could not live without them at all. Recommended. I have also previously looked at Corbett Maths but rarely depend on it these days for resources. It is great to see you back.

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  2. Another great round up of resources... thank you. Re going through exam papers, Import a pdf into SNB. Works brilliantly.
    Stickers... I make my own to save money.
    I'm now teaching entry level functional maths full time. If anyone can recommend resources please share. Thanks.

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  3. Thanks so much for sharing. It just makes teaching so easy!

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  4. Thank you for for all your hard work on this site; it's an invaluable resource for us all!

    Hope you feel better and wish you all the best for 2023

    Garry Wayland

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  5. These resources look fantastic! Thank you for rounding them all up to make it so much easier for the rest of us! It's definitely well appreicated

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