Resourceaholic: 5 Maths Gems #198

Welcome to my 198^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. GCSE Question Distribution

Thanks to Jamie Frost for producing a detailed breakdown of skills that have appeared on past GCSE papers. Other websites have analyses by topic, but Jamie has such an extensive database of past exam questions that he has been able to produce a much more granular analysis, for all exam boards and including IGCSE.

I teach AQA at GCSE and when I teach circle theorems I always say 'alternate segment theorem seems to come up a lot in exams' - this was just a hunch, but now I know for sure - it does indeed come up a lot! Of course just because something has appeared in exams a lot in the past, it doesn't mean it will continue to do so (in fact, the opposite could be true - perhaps this year's GCSE exams will contain a lot of topics that haven't been tested in a while) so this data can't be used to make predictions. It's still interesting though. Thank you to Jamie for sharing it.

Each skill includes a link to a randomly generated example question. Schools subscribed to Dr Frost can generate worksheets from these which can be printed or set as online tasks.

2. E2E Revision Sheets

@ThtPedagogyGeek has created a nice set of resources called E2E (Example to Exam) Revision Sheets. The idea is that you model the worked example - students copy it down and take notes, then complete the three questions. These are designed for GCSE revision.

3. Diagram Creator

There are numerous online tools to create diagrams but I often find them unintuitive or overly complex, or they require a login. Thank you to @TickTockMaths for sharing a tool designed for creating simple diagrams quickly. He made it so he could insert diagrams into lessons created with his Slide Creator (see Gems 197) but it can also be used as a standalone tool.

4. Corbett Maths Key Stage 1
Key Stage 1 teachers will be pleased to see that John Corbett has extended his popular 5-a-day range to Key Stage 1. He has made the first level (Ruby) with Emerald and Diamond to follow.

I know that secondary teachers sometimes find these primary resources helpful too (I'm thinking of our Entry Level classes).

5. A Level Resources

We had a difficult logs and integration question in our Year 13 mock this year that even our strongest mathematicians struggled with, so I'm pleased to see this lovely little task from ‪@mrlevmaths.bsky.social‬ for practising this specific skill.

Also thanks to ‪@karenshancock.bsky.social‬ for a resource on 'Power Equations' which is useful for Year 12 and also Year 11 L2 Further Maths students.

Other resources on Karen's website that might be helpful for both Year 12 and L2 Certificate in Further Maths include Factorising with Surds and Graphical Solutions. Thank you Karen!

Also thanks to ‪@adamsfax.bsky.social‬ for his 'Edexcel formula sheet in a page'. We'll print these in September for all A level students to keep in the front of their book.

Big Mathematical Ideas

Colin Foster (one of the wisest men in maths education) has launched a new website: bigmathematicalideas.org. He has written a chapter on each of the five big mathematical ideas.

I believe this should be compulsory reading for every trainee teacher. No matter how good you are at maths when you train to be a teacher, the thing that everyone needs to develop is their pedagogical subject knowledge (not just how to do the maths, but how to explain the maths). But it's not just for trainees. I've been teaching for a long time now and I think my subject knowledge is pretty strong, but within a few minutes of reading this website I was thinking deeply about things that I haven't thought deeply about before (the big multipliers table in Section 1.5.2 had me wondering why I'd never shared this with students).

Reading this website will probably be my summer holiday project, or perhaps something I do in my gained time this term. I will use it to write next year's professional development sessions for my department.

Update

The first half of the summer term is very intense if you teach a lot of exam classes! I know that in some schools Year 11s have already started study leave, but I still have three weeks of lessons left with Year 11. I'm still doing topic-based revision (for example, next week we're revising surds and indices) and mixed revision (often using my revision mats). I always find that my students make masses of progress in our summer term revision lessons so I'm glad my time with them isn't cut short. If you're looking for good revision resources for Year 11, remember my GCSE Revision page has loads of hand-picked recommendations, and Adam Creen's annual 'Best Guess GCSE Dropbox' has been updated with the latest practice papers.

I had a fantastic to response my last blog post (#mathsconf40) and to my recent conference presentation about Key Stage 3. I received dozens of emails from teachers asking for support on curriculum and assessments, including lots who said they find my gems posts helpful. Since most social media posts are now met with tumbleweed (a few likes and shares, but rarely a response), I often wonder if there's any point blogging for maths teachers these days - it's hard to tell whether anyone is listening. But after the flurry of lovely emails my enthusiasm for writing has returned, so thank you to everyone who got in touch. 💗

No doubt you saw that new research on setting in maths was published by the EEF. There are Year 7s in my school who struggle to add single digit numbers, or to multiply integers by ten, and others who find it easy to solve complex algebraic and geometric problems. Teaching these children in the same class doesn't make any sense to me, and I feel it would particularly let down the students who struggle the most and would benefit from being in a smaller group. Maths teachers are sometimes made to feel like they're evil or lazy for teaching in sets when they are actually trying to do the right thing for the students who need the most support. The narrative that schools often assign their 'worst' teachers to teach the lowest attainers is insulting nonsense. Most Heads of Maths prioritise the students who find maths difficult, and assign absolute superstars to teach them.

Here's a round up of some recent developments, in case you missed anything:

Jonny Griffiths has updated his website carom-maths.co.uk which houses a collection of forty activities bridging from A Level Mathematics to University Mathematics. This is a great set of resources for a Sixth Form maths club.
Maths Genie has had a big update! Set up a free account to access useful resources, like the GCSE mini tests.
A few teachers have been in touch to ask about the RULER resources from Ben Tanner. These popular resources used to be available on Ben's website but it no longer exists. Helpfully, Tim Stirrup shared an archived version of the website, where you can still download the booklets.
The QAMA is back - but this time, as an online version instead of a physical calculator. QAMA requires an estimation before it will work out an answer. It's great for developing number sense. If students don't have access to devices to use the online calculator in lessons, it could instead be used by the teacher in modelling.
Recently I've received a fair few emails from teachers who have either used AI to create tools for teachers or have created a platform where students can use AI to support their learning. For example, on gcsemathsai.co.uk students type in any topic or question and get instant step-by-step worked explanations. It covers the full GCSE syllabus and is free, with no account needed. One thing that stood out for me on this website is the misconceptions for each topic (e.g. look at 'common mistakes' for inequalities and arc length and sector area) which might be helpful for teachers planning lessons.
Hannah Fry is going to be on the next Celebrity Traitors (our favourite family viewing - my daughter is obsessed with it)! Cue me telling everyone who will listen about the time Hannah bought me a drink and we hung out at BCME...