5 Maths Gems #190

Welcome to my 190^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Resources Created Using AI

I posted about @DGRAIMaths's resources in my post AI Maths Resources last year. His website aimaths.weebly.com has now been updated with a new set of resources covering histograms, cumulative frequency graphs, box plots and line graphs.

Duncan uses ChatGTP to help him make these resources but he doesn't just type in a prompt. The AI generates graphs and questions but it's Duncan who does the thinking about what the tasks should actually look like. The resources follow an "I Do, We Do, You Do" approach, intended to be delivered at pace, with live modelling leading to lots of independent practice.

Duncan's aim is to break down each topic so that lower attaining students can access high level material, and to create resources that can be used by non-specialist or inexperienced teachers.

In these resources Duncan has stripped away unnecessary complexity - things like awkward language or overcomplicated scales - and introduced key representations without context at first, so students can focus on the mathematical structure without distraction.

Check out Duncan's resources at aimaths.weebly.com.

2. Dr Austin's Key Stage 3 Revision
I really like these new Key Stage 3 revision resources from Dr Austin. The worked examples at the top means they'll work well if you're setting cover for absent teachers, as well as for revision.

3. Best Guess GCSE Papers
Many thanks to everyone who has created and shared Paper 2 resources for next week's GCSE exam. These include @1stClassMaths, @MathsTeacherHub, @Mr_D_Does_Maths, @hkettlemaths, @ThtPedagogyGeek, @CorbettMaths, @OnMaths, @ThirdSpaceTweet, @MattTheApp, @GCSEMathsTutor, @Just_Maths, @AddvanceMaths, @BennettMaths and @DrFrostResource and more (apologies to those I've missed - there's been so many to keep track of!).

1stclassmaths.com

At my school we are fortunate that we have no GCSE exams the day before Maths Paper 2 this year and we have a couple of hours where all the Year 11 maths teachers are available, so we've invited Year 11 into school to do some predicted papers that day. We plan to use the 1st Class Maths Predicted Papers plus a revision mat that I've made containing topics that might come up in the exam the next day. If you want to borrow this revision mat (note that we do AQA), feel free to download it here. Please note that I don't take any credit for writing most of the questions - I've just found questions that my students haven't seen before and arranged them in a useful resource. It's designed to be printed on A3 to ensure there's some space for workings. I've also made similar A level revision mat (we do Edexcel at A level) for our pre-exam warm up next week that you're welcome to borrow if you want.

4. GCSE Statistics

Since I started teaching GCSE Statistics as an option block course I've realised that there's a huge gap in the market for resources for this qualification. There are plenty of resources available for GCSE Maths, A Level and AQA's L2 Certificate in Further Maths, but high quality resources for GCSE Statistics are seriously lacking.

However I'm delighted to see resources for GCSE Statistics are starting to appear. This summer I hope to add a GCSE Statistics section to my resource libraries so I can signpost teachers to tasks for each topic. If you've produced GCSE Statistics resources that you're sharing for free, do get in touch so I can include the links in this new resource library.

In case you haven't seen it, statsgcse.com is a new website from OnMaths which has practice papers that students can complete online.

In my last post I mentioned @harryzafar's new website mathboardwalk.com. This collection of resources continues to grow, for example the latest addition is a resource for teaching Normal Distribution. 

@karenshancock has also shared a second GCSE Statistics revision paper at kshancock.co.uk.

5. Alpha Books
Thank you to ‪@neechmaths.bsky.social‬ and ‪@mrsevcartwright.bsky.social‬ for pointing me towards the temporary website alphaworkbooks.co.uk from Phil Thorns. Phil has published a collection of write-on workbooks which include examples, questions, hints and answers. These workbooks are great - a lot of the tasks have scaffolded hints, so I can see loads of potential uses for them, including cover work, revision and homework. 

Sadly the company Alpha Workbooks is closing down but Phil has very kindly decided to offer the workbooks to students and teachers for free. Download them quickly before the website is taken down! There are workbooks for both A level (including both statistics and mechanics) and GCSE.

Update

Exam season is underway. I have eighteen exam warm ups to prepare and run this year, and I've only done seven so far, so we still have a long way to go! It's all good fun though - I love the summer term. And there's so much to look forward to when exam season is over. I always have a great time at the MEI Conference and I can't wait to attend again this year - I will be there on the Thursday night and all day on the Friday. Book a place at mei.org.uk/conference.

I'll also be at #mathsconf38 on 21st June, presenting on some lovely surds and algebra from old textbooks. I won't be there for the pre-conference drinks on Friday night though, because I'll be in London at the TES Awards (my lovely school is up for a technology award and they are kindly letting me tag along at the awards event!).

Our friends at Casio are keen to receive feedback on their new fx-CG100 so please do let them know what you think. They have various videos to help teachers learn how to use this new model.

In other news, Craig Barton and I are thinking about running another course this October: Marvellous Maths 4. Those of you who have attended before will know how this works: it's a full day of CPD for maths teachers, and we hope to run the same event in three separate venues: South, Midlands and North. We have really enjoyed running these courses in the past and we always get great feedback. If you can offer a suitable venue in the Midlands on 21st October 2025, please get in touch (e.g. a school with capacity for 100 delegates and good transport links). 

I'll leave you with two things that made me laugh. First, from 1stClassMaths, part of a question in a practice paper with a joke that I thought only people of a certain age would notice, but has been getting lots of attention from students on TikTok:

And some Star Wars maths jokes (see this thread), which were shared on May the 4th.