5 Maths Gems #197

Welcome to my 197^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Dr Austin A Level Revision
It's always great to see new Dr Austin resources. Latest additions include a Harder Reflections Practice Grid and a Negative Enlargements Practice Grid, plus some new A level resources on Logs, Hyperbolics and Polar Coordinates. An A Level Revision section has also been added, featuring revision grids for Year 12 and Year 13.

2. New Online Tools
I've seen a number of excellent new online tools recently:

• Vectorama - I featured Neil Kendall's free resource Graphiti in Gems 196, and now he has published Vectorama which is designed to help teach vectors, matrices and transformations in 2D and 3D. It is helpful for everything from introducing the basics of matrix transformations to teaching eigenvectors in Year 13 Further Maths. Worksheets have also been provided so students can investigate the concepts themselves. This is a fantastic tool - thank you Neil!

• Reflections - Callum Adamson created a tool for modelling reflections in Gemini (download the file and it will run in your browser). You can use the shapes in the drop down menu or upload pdf versions of slides or worksheets and use an interactive mirror on top. In the picture below you can see I've uploaded a page from an AQA topic test and it looks very cool.

• Slide Creator - @TickTockMaths made a Slide Creator which is designed to create maths lessons quickly. Lessons can easily feature example problem pairs, interactivity, fill in the blanks and so on, all using pre-built templates. Check out some examples of lessons: area of a circle, assigning probabilities and factorising quadratics (open these on desktop, not a mobile).

3. A Level Resources
Recently I've seen some new A level resources that are worth sharing.

@andrewmaths1 has been tweeting a series of A level questions on X (thread here).

I like this scaffolded logs resource from @mrlevmaths.bsky.social.

And this great parametrics resource from ‪@karenshancock.bsky.social‬.

Finally, this isn't new but I hadn't seen it before so thought it might be useful to share. Whilst looking for an A level resource online I found the website mathematicswales.com. It features A level questions by topic - always helpful!

4. Mr Barton Maths
In Gems 195 I wrote about some of the fantastic new features on mrbartonmaths.com. Since then even more features have been added so do spend some time exploring it. For example, there's a problem solving section with loads of fantastic lesson ideas.

You can choose a topic and see suggestions for rich tasks and questions that get students thinking.

5. GCSE Revision

We always see a flurry of new Paper 1s being shared at this time of year - it's really helpful to have access to new GCSE resources that our students haven't seen before. It's important to be clear with students that it's not possible to guess what will appear on GCSE Paper 1 this summer so while these papers are great for practice, they can not be considered 'predictions' (though after Paper 1 there is an opportunity to narrow down the topics and attempt to guess what might come up in Papers 2 and 3). Here are the new (free) Paper 1s I've seen:

• 1st Class Maths (Edexcel Paper 1 H and F are already published and AQA is coming soon).
• Hannah Kettle
• Bennett Maths
• New website luckymaths.co.uk has Foundation practice papers 

If you're looking for good quality GCSE revision resources there are loads of them on my GCSE Revision Page - I've added a link to this page at the top right of my blog so you can access it quickly at this time of year. It includes some resources I've made myself including revision mats, the original breakfast warm ups, and the revision quiz I made last year which I'm looking forward to using again (see this post). 

Update

March was a busy time at school, the highlight being our annual Maths Week. This involves a treasure hunt, a daily puzzle, a Sparx contest and an assembly about a mathematician (this year I did it on Turing). 

We are always delighted when we see students attempting to solve the daily puzzle as soon as they arrive at school, and students crowded around the maths office at break eagerly discussing their ideas. We find it difficult to find suitable puzzles for all year groups - this year we took some of them from this helpful resource. 

Delivering assemblies is nerve-racking enough, but to add extra pressure I had a researcher from the Department for Education observing me this year. My school was selected as one of sixteen schools nationally recognised for high engagement, attainment and attendance, so we are part of their research on 'how schools foster belonging'. It was convenient that they happened to conduct this research during Maths Week, which is one of the best house events in my school's calendar.

Did you see the latest comment on my Words to Avoid post? It made me laugh.

I'm very much looking forward to the MEI Conference in July. Bookings are now open. I highly recommend this conference - it's always brilliant.

I'm also looking forward to #mathsconf40. I'm concerned it's going to a particularly exhausting way to start the busiest half term of the year (I have a Parents Evening on the Thursday and a trip to Derby for mathsconf on the Friday night, both at the end of six period days!) but at least there's a Bank Holiday a couple of weeks later to aid recovery. It's always good to see everyone at mathsconfs, and it looks like there's an interesting range of talks on offer. I've written a new workshop on 'Challenging and Engaging Key Stage 3 Mathematicians' which I'm looking forward to sharing. I hope to see you there!