5 Maths Gems #187

Welcome to my 187^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Calculator Skills
I love the website gcsemathsquestions.co.uk, which I first featured back in Gems 155. It has PowerPoints of GCSE questions from three exam boards, sorted by topic. I find this really helpful. A new addition to this website is a calculator resource. It features GCSE questions that allow students to practise each calculator skill, including prime factorisation, ratio and mean from a table, and QR codes so students can see video explanations of how to answer each question using calculator functions. I plan to use this resource in a revision lesson with Year 11 in a couple of weeks. 

2. AI Updates

I've blogged about using AI in maths teaching a couple of times before: 

• in AI Maths Resources I wrote about the resources on aimaths.weebly.com which were created by @DGRAIMaths using AI
• in my post Digitising Old Textbook Exercises I wrote about how I used AI tools to instantly turn exercises from old textbooks into high quality electronic documents.  

I thought it might be useful to use my gems posts to occasionally update readers about AI related developments in the world of maths education.

• @MattTheApp has created an AI maths chatbot called the Eden Project - check out this tweet to see the kind of thing he's doing with it. 
• Lots of schools are experiencing problems with students using AI to cheat on Sparx and other homework platforms - you can normally tell by the speed at which they complete their homework. There's a thread about this here. 
• @hartmaths tried using AI to help create a gap fill activity on volume. This is what it came up with:

3. A Level Statistics
@mrwhatleymaths.bsky.social‬ has generously shared his work on A Level Statistics. There are very few resources available for this qualification so this will be incredibly helpful for any school that runs, or is considering running, A Level Statistics. There's some crossover with other qualifications too.  Oliver's resources and scheme of work can be downloaded here. 

4. Vocabulary
@melissamaths's team have had a big focus on mathematical literacy and Tier 3 vocabulary this year and have created a bank of key words and command words across all three Key Stages. The words have student friendly definitions, alongside an image of the 'word in action'. You can download this word bank here.

5. Don's Patterns

‪@catrionaagg.bsky.social‬ posted about one of Don Steward’s tasks which has a pattern in the answers. This makes it easy to check, and students quickly spot the pattern so they can self-correct as they go, plus there's an instant extension activity in trying to write the next question. The task is for solving equations with an unknown on both sides:

This reminds me of one of my favourite Don Steward tasks - 'Expanding and Simplifying' - this also has a pleasing pattern in the answers:

It's a great idea to set a challenge task along the lines of  'find another expression that fits the pattern'.

Conference

It's only two weeks until #mathsconf37 in Sheffield. It's not too late to book tickets. There's a great lineup of workshops and I really encourage maths teachers to attend if they've never been to one of these conferences before. It's always a great day out.

I'll leave you with this... Thanks to ‪@emmathe37th.bsky.social for sharing The Polygon Song from Mr Walker on YouTube. This made me laugh!

5 Maths Gems #184

Happy New Year and welcome to my 184^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Dr Austin

Thank you to Amanda Austin for continuing to share fantastic free resources for Key Stages 3 to 5. I've been adding these to my resource libraries. Recent additions include Simplifying Expressions True or False, Parallel or Not Parallel Activity and Drawing Line Segments with a Given Gradient, plus lots of A level mechanics tasks. 

2. MathsPad

MathsPad have recently published some really lovely new resources for subscribers including significant figures puzzles that involve a lot of reasoning and worksheets on 2D and 3D Shapes. They have also published new textbook chapters for Year 11 packed full of fantastic tasks including chapters on area and volume, real life graphs and measures, inequalities and rounding and estimation. 

There's also a new interactive tool for exploring the triangle inequality. 

3. 1st Class Maths

Another one of my favourite websites is 1stclassmaths.com. I use this a lot when teaching AQA Level 2 Certificate in Further Maths, and we also direct our Year 11 students to it for GCSE revision. The videos and resources are all really high quality. Our students also find the topic frequencies page fascinating! And I will definitely be using the A level resources when I teach statistics this term. 

Recent additions to the GCSE revision page (which has both an AQA and Edexcel version) include questions on volume and area, sequences and fractions. I have added all of these to my resource libraries.

4. Things to Memorise

Since Formula Sheets were reintroduced at GCSE we've had students asking whether we have a list of facts and formulae that they still need to memorise. I've finally got round to making something for the students at my school. I've tried to make it succinct and it's certainly not an exhaustive list of everything they need to learn, but it does provide a summary of the key facts that they can get parents or friends to test them on. Students need to be fluent in all these facts so they can focus their efforts on reasoning and problem solving.

You can download these for both Higher and Foundation tier (including editable versions) here for your Year 11 students. I was a bit unsure about sharing these documents because I didn't make every image myself - I just found things on Google images that I thought were particularly clear. Apologies and thank you to the creators of the pictures I have used. If you spot any mistakes, please let me know.

5. Integration 

I very much enjoy Catriona Agg's posts on Bluesky. A nice example is her recent post about integration using trigonometric substitutions. I'm using this with my Further Maths class next week.

I also loved her recent post about graph sketches. 

I also like Catriona's topic map for trigonometry, which really helps students get a sense of where their learning fits with what they've done before and what's coming next.

I do something similar in my lessons - for example here's a slide I show when I teach factorising to Year 10:

Updates

Here are a more few things you might be interested in:

• I received an email from Head of Maths Ben Plowman about a daily puzzle based on the 'Knight's Move' in chess. Ben's son made this clever little game. I think my readers will enjoy it: knightpuzzle.com.
  
• Tom Francome's team has been busy digitising Don Steward’s paper notes and they are now available on Don's wonderful blog. Read Tom's post about this here. I've really enjoyed reading Don's notes - they are full of treasures. New teachers who have not yet discovered Don Steward's tasks - please drop everything and explore them now. 
• OCR have recently published some posts that will help teachers develop their A level curriculum knowledge. In Amy Dai's post A Level Maths and Further Maths: the importance of accurate vocabulary in statistics there's really helpful information on where candidates go wrong in exams. And Steve Walker has written a great post on Show That questions. These posts and more can be accessed through OCR's website.
• Paul Rowlandson published a new blog post: 'Taxing Tasks with Turtles' which looks at a selection of geometry problems and investigations that can be explored by using a small amount of coding.
• The Joint Conference of the Mathematical Subject Associations takes place in Loughborough on 14th to 16th April 2025 - check out futureproofingthecurriculum.org.uk for information.

Vacancy

Come and work with me! I will have at least one vacancy for September and I'll definitely need someone who can teach Year 13 mechanics. We have a fantastic uptake for A level Maths and Further Maths and I have a brilliant team teaching it, but we need one more A Level maths teacher to join us. I will be advertising soon - hopefully in January - so watch this space. We are located in South London. Behaviour and attitudes are excellent so our students are a pleasure to teach - this year our Maths Progress 8 score was 1.22 (data available here). Here's a picture some of my lovely team of maths teachers enjoying our Christmas party! If you're interested in joining us, please get in touch.

An apology for my absence
You might have noticed that I don't blog anywhere near as much as I used to. This is constantly on my mind. I really want to keep blogging, I just struggle to find the time and inspiration these days. My job grew this year and although I love it, it can be all-consuming at times. Plus parenting busy daughters in Year 6 and 8 doesn't leave much time for hobbies like blogging!

My inspiration for content is seriously lacking too. There was a mass exodus of maths teachers from Twitter over summer, and it's now pretty dead there in terms of posts about resources. There's a pleasant community of maths teachers on Bluesky, some of them sharing lovely ideas and insights on a regular basis using the hashtag #mathstoday, but for some reason I just can't get into it. I have tried. And it's not just social media providing few ideas for blog posts - this year I'm only teaching Years 11, 12 and 13 - I find that when I teach Key Stage 3 I have much more to write about. My timetable is mostly Sixth Form, but having had a seven year break from teaching A level, I wouldn't be so bold as to give advice about A level pedagogy. 

But I haven't totally disappeared. In the background I do still add resources to my resource libraries to make sure they are kept up-to-date. You can access my resource libraries here. And I often get emails from teachers and Heads of Maths asking for advice which I'm always happy to provide. And I do have some things I plan to blog about later in the year - for example I think there might be some interest in how we structure the teaching of our new option subject (which combines GCSE Statistics with Certificate in Further Maths) but I should wait until our first set of results are in this summer before I write about that! 

So in short - sorry for my absence from both blogging and social media. I am still here in the background, and I hope to see many of you at conferences this year. 

I will leave you with this lovely little puzzle from ‪@1stclassmaths.bsky.social‬.

Thank you for reading, and all the best for the start of the Spring term.

#5 Maths Gems 182

Welcome to my 182^nd gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1.Bad Graphs

It's fun (and important) to share examples of misleading graphs with students. @ticktockmaths has shared a gallery of bad graphs which will be very helpful. I love the example below: at first glance it seems very clear and the scale seems fine, but when you think about what it's trying to show you realise how misleading it is.

Do check out the rest of ticktockmaths.co.uk - the lessons on there are really nice. Recent additions include one on Mixed Numbers and Improper Fractions and one on Writing Expressions. 

2. Algebraic Fractions

@japleen_kaur1 shared these lovely algebraic fractions questions made by her colleague.

Answers are here. Thank you for sharing these Japleen! I love the creativity. 

3. Fractions Vocabulary

@Scott_Math83 shared three simple questions which highlight the challenges students face when working with fractions and percentages. A subtle change in wording totally changes each question. 

4. Multiples

I love tasks which encourage deeper thinking about factors, multiples and primes. Thank you to @studymaths for sharing this:

Check out @studymaths' feed for lots more excellent tasks.

5. Dr Austin

@draustinmaths continues to share great new A level resources for both pure maths and mechanics. Recent examples include a task on set notation and one on graphical inequalities and regions. Thanks Amanda!

Update
On Friday I was at the Harris October Conference with my lovely colleagues. 

If you want to join my brilliant team, we have a vacancy for a January start. Contact me if you want to chat about the role - but note that the closing date for applications is Monday 14th October so you will have to act quickly!

After a quick stop at post-conference drinks in London, I got the train up to Sheffield for pre-#mathsconf36 drinks. Two sets of drinks on the same day in two different cities was a bit much for me - I'm too old for this and I was beyond exhausted!

 

On Saturday I attended #mathsconf36 which was excellent. It was the best conference I have been to in a long time, and it has rekindled my love for mathsconfs! I went to fantastic workshops led by Rob Eastaway, Sam Blatherwick and Craig Latimir. I really enjoyed these workshops. I ran a session myself called 'Every Mark Matters' where I shared examples of where students lose marks at GCSE. The idea is that we show these examples to our students to help them better understand what's expected. If you attended the conference, my slides will be emailed out next week by the team at Complete Mathematics.

If you've not been to a mathsconf in a while, or you've never been before, then I strongly encourage you to attend the next one. It will be in March - date and venue tbc.

Finally, this week I did the classic paper folding integration activity with my Year 13 class. The idea came from @sxpmaths many years ago and it's always my favourite A level lesson of the year!

5 Maths Gems #179

Welcome to my 179^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Maths Advance

I blogged about Maths Advance in Gems 173 - it's a website full of excellent challenge questions, perfect for high attaining classes. I've now had the pleasure of meeting the author of the website, George Bowman, at two recent conferences. Here are a couple of examples of his problems:

The problems are available for free, but subscribing to the website gives access to answers plus full video solutions.

2. A Level Topic Frequency and Advice

Thank you to @the_chalkface for sharing his analysis of topics appearing in Edexcel's A Level Maths and Further Maths exams. 

And thanks to @JohnRubinstein1 for sharing his 'advice for A level maths'.

3. GCSE Revision 

@draustinmaths has added to her excellent collection of revision grids. New additions include More Quadratic Equations and Inequalities, Circle Theorems, and Sine and Cosine Rules.

@MrMorleyMaths has added a number of new resources to his website mrmorleymaths.co.uk including Suggested Revision Booklets for Higher and Foundation Edexcel Paper 1, plus around 70 new How To Sheets with worked examples and exam questions.

Ken Stafford's website mathslinks.co.uk has been updated with worksheets containing Edexcel Past Paper questions for every topic, with handwritten worked solutions.

Also, check out these lovely hand-drawn posters of the GCSE syllabus from @mindmapmaths. These were shared four years ago but somehow I missed them at the time!

For more revision resources check out my GCSE 9 - 1 Revision Resources page. Or if you're looking for some handpicked recommendations and guidance on how to structure your revision lessons, see my recent blog post about GCSE revision.

4. Algebraic Fractions

@andrewmaths1 sent me some great questions from his travels in Canada. Here's one of my favourites:

I also like this one, for reasoning about graphs:

5. 1st Class Maths

I'm a big fan of the high quality resources produced by @1stclassmaths. They come in the style of both AQA and Edexcel. Recent additions include kinematic graphs, capture recapture, enlargements, algebraic proof, equation of a circle, tangent to a circle, circle theorem proofs and vectors. These are linked through my resource libraries. 

Update
Here are some things you might have missed:

• LUMEN launched their Key Stage 3 curriculum: learn about it here. 
  
• Your students might be interested in this Polypad competition. The deadline for entries is 17th May. 
• Designing your own maths resources? This geoboard from @StudyMaths makes very neat diagrams.

I've been busy since my last gems post. I had a great day at #mathsconf34:

And I enjoyed my visit to Stratford-Upon-Avon for #jointconf24, where I attended an excellent session on A Level by Rob Southern and Susan Whitehouse. Their book Teaching A Level Maths is out soon.

I recorded a podcast with Craig Barton which has had some lovely feedback.

🚨New episode🚨@mathsjem discusses 10 strategies that led to her and her team's incredible GCSE Maths results. Jo talks a lot of sense - apart from when it comes to mini-whiteboards. Enjoy!https://t.co/HJAFMHRFoo pic.twitter.com/14eQWhkovn

— Craig Barton (@mrbartonmaths) April 3, 2024

I also recorded a video explaining the Factor Method for finding a HCF and LCM (this has also had some surprisingly nice feedback, but I don't think I see a career as a YouTuber in my future...).

And I enjoyed a great night out at Puttshack (highly recommended for a work social) with my fantastic team.

I have a vacancy to join my team - it closes on 15th April. If you're looking for a change, and you want to work somewhere where it's a pleasure to teach maths to students with excellent attitudes, apply now. I can offer majority A level teaching, or a range of classes from Years 7 - 13, or just Years 7 - 11 if preferred.

This month marks the tenth anniversary of resourceaholic.com. I've written 478 blog posts in the last decade! Check out the archive here.

I'll leave you with an idea to get some spare Casio 83GTXs for classroom and exam lending. Since Casio discontinued this model but we still have three year groups using it, it would be helpful to ask departing Year 11 students to donate their calculator after their last GCSE exam (provided they won't need it next year). As an incentive, we might stand outside the physics exam as students come out and offer a swap - chocolate for calculator!