#5 Maths Gems 181

Welcome to my 181^st gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. A level
I've seen a number of fantastic new A level resources recently:

• From @the_chalkface, exam questions arranged by topic for Edexcel A level Maths and Further Maths. Although similar collections already exist, this may become my go-to: it's well organised, easy to access and high quality.
• From @m4thsdotcom, 160 worksheets for the pure course, targeted by grade.
• A new page for A level resources on one of my favourite websites: 1stclassmaths.com.
• A growing collection of A level resources from @draustinmaths at draustinmaths.com/a-level.
• Year 12 revision sheets with solutions from @mrsouthernmaths.

Thank you to everyone for their generous sharing!

2. Standard Form
@giftedHKO has been tweeting about some of the lovely tasks on her website mathshko.com including this one for standard form:

Check out her website for more like this.

3. Memory Maths
@studymaths has updated the classic 'Memory Maths' game. You can now generate your own. We used to use this at my last school on Open Evening -  parents, children and teachers would be given a mini whiteboard and told to draw a grid. Then they would gather round to write answers on their whiteboards as the questions flashed up. It was always lots of fun - everyone was always excited to see who would be the first to complete their grid.

There's a wide range of games and starters to check out on mathsbot.com.

4. Quadrilaterals

Over summer @EmathsUK shared a really nice quadrilaterals task that I've not seen before. Students are asked to come up with suitable questions to populate the flow chat accurately and then name the quadrilaterals. The task can be downloaded from emaths.co.uk.

5. Circles
@AMercerMaths made a lovely "Sometimes, Always, Never" on parts of a circle which provides lots of opportunities for reasoning.

Update

I haven't written a gems post since July so here's a quick update on what I got up to over summer.

In July @MeganGuinan1 went to drinks to celebrate Matt Parker's book Love Triangle becoming a bestseller. We met the most fascinating people at these drinks, from zoologists to linguists.

In August I met up with fellow South London maths teachers @MeganGuinan1, @LeightonM4ths and @nkl_17. 

And I ended the summer with a trip to Belfast where I had a fantastic experience presenting to a wonderful group of maths teachers from the West Belfast Area Learning Community.

I wrote three blog posts during August that you might have missed:

• Latest Resources and Trends
• Digitising Old Textbook Exercises
• Challenges for a Head of Maths

The start of term has hit like a sledgehammer, like it does every year, and I already feel like I'm at peak exhaustion. I have 33 students in my Year 12 A level maths class, but only enough desks for 32. Year 12 have neither textbooks nor devices because we don't have the budget to buy either. I also have 27 students in my Year 12 Further Maths class which is a shock to the system after having only six last year! It will take a bit of adjusting but we'll make it work. Apart from all that, we seem to be settling into our new school year - in my last blog post 'September Routines' I shared some of the things we have put in place in the first few weeks of term. We were very happy that over 100 students turned up to our first Papers Society - this bodes well. I'm also very much enjoying teaching our new option block class in Year 11 - teaching Level 2 Further Maths in timetabled lessons for the first time is a delight.

I hope to see lots of you attend #mathsconf36 in Sheffield next month. I will be sharing some insights on things students need to look out for at GCSE.

Have a great week!