5 Maths Gems #175

Welcome to my 175^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. New Resources

Dr Austin continues to publish fantastic new resources on a regular basis. Her latest creations include a prime factor puzzle:

and Function Machines for Rearranging Formulae:

And a Standard Form Crack the Code:

Check out DrAustinMaths.com for lots more.

I'm a huge fan of MathsPad and love their recent algebra puzzles which can be found in their booklet Year 10 Foundation Chapter 2: Algebraic Expressions. These puzzles have six levels of difficulty and would work well with any year group. You need to subscribe for access to this - here are a couple of extracts to give you an idea:

Thank you to @MrSMaths11 for sharing a Hidden Quadratics Fill In The Blanks. This is a skill that some Year 12 students find really tricky - I'm guilty of failing to provide enough scaffolding at A level, so it's good to see resources like this.

And thank you to @AMercerMaths for sharing an original idea for estimating solutions of simultaneous equations graphically. 

2. GCSE Revision
Thank you to @1stclassmaths for sharing a brilliant new revision resource for Higher Tier, to accompany the Foundation Tier resource previously published. I've added these to my GCSE Revision Page. 

These free resources feature one question on every topic - so for Higher Tier that's 106 original questions, ordered by difficulty with video solutions. 1st Class Maths resources are always very high quality, and a lot of thought goes into the question design. 

Thanks also to @taylorda01 for sharing Backward Faded GCSE Papers. These are designed so that a double-page spread consists of worked solutions on the left, and completion problems on the right.

3. Developing Vocabulary
I love this task from @catrionateaches - she used it to practise the vocabulary of algebra with Year 7.

4. Oak National Academy
@MEIMaths shared some of the early-release units that they helped create for Oak National Academy. There are some great resources here for Key Stages 1 - 4, and it's good to get a taste of the type of resources that will be published through this project.

5. Fraction Division Prompt

Thanks to @StudyMaths for sharing this task. The idea is that students gain an understanding of fraction division being equivalent to multiplying by the reciprocal.

 

Marvellous Maths 3

Craig Barton and I had a great time on tour for Marvellous Maths 3. We ran the course in Sutton, Worcester and Bolton. In all three venues our delegates were absolutely brilliant.

Delegates will be sent all the recordings, research and resources in a couple of weeks. If you missed out on the course, you'll still be able to purchase these recordings. Watch this space for more information.

We'll be back in 2025 with Marvellous Maths 4. 

Update

• Everyone involved in maths education is encouraged to complete the MA's online survey to share the challenges you face and the changes you'd like to see.
• Also check out the MA's upcoming webinars:
• On 9th November, Rose Keating supports Key Stage 2 teachers to have a better understanding of the demands of Key Stage 2 maths test papers. 
• On 22nd November, Katheryn Cockerton is speaking about delivering sustained improvements in post-16 mathematics, focusing on functional skills and GCSE resit.
• If you have students taking university maths admissions tests, you might be interested in the new initiative announced by Wycombe Abbey - details are here. 
• The AMSP is also running a series of in-person one-day courses, supporting teachers in understanding how best to assist their students with the transition to undergraduate study, and how to prepare them for the mathematical expectations of university admissions tests.

My brilliant team had a great night out celebrating our school's first ever set of GCSE results which put us in the top fifty secondary schools in the country for Progress 8. I'm particularly delighted with our provisional maths P8 score which is top 1%. Now the challenge is whether we can match these results next year!

Thank you to Kyle Evans' publishers for sending me a copy of his new book 'A Year in Numbers'. I always enjoy books like this.

I'll leave you with some lovely challenging algebraic fractions questions that I found in a textbook from 1901. See my tweet for more like this.