5 Maths Gems #192

Welcome to my 192^nd gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Hannah Kettle

Hannah Kettle is making worksheets and accompanying videos to review each unit of the GCSE Maths course. Unit 1 Higher (Number) is now on her website with the accompanying worksheet. Hannah has a great idea - these videos and resources would be brilliant for Year 10 or 11 cover lessons. Students make notes and review the first page while watching the video, before having a go at the second side on their own.

2. Durham Murder Mysteries

‪Hannah (‪@missradders) tweeted about how much her Year 8s loved the Durham Maths Mystery she used in an algebra lesson. 

This inspired @mrs-p-maths to post about using a Straight Line Graphs Maths Mystery with Year 10.

It's been a very long time since I've blogged about these resources and I suspect that a lot of new teachers won't have seen them before. If you like these check out Gems 96 where I shared some similar activities produced by Richard Perring.

3. MathsPad

MathsPad have shared some excellent new resources in their September Update including new chapters in their curriculum booklets. 

There's also new Arrange the Digits slides and worksheet and Proportion Tables slides and worksheet.

4. AS Level Tasks

Dr Austin shared some fantastic new AS level tasks at the end of the summer holidays. Check out her website draustinmaths.com for the full collection. 

Through the #mathstoday hashtag on Bluesky (this is where maths teachers post daily highlights from their lessons) I've seen a number of other fantastic Year 12 tasks this week.

From Catriona (@catrionaagg), an algebra task where students are pushed to articulate their reasoning...

... and a lovely lesson on graph sketching.

@MrLevMaths shared a really interesting task on intersections, thinking about sketching and the discriminant. 

Karen (@karenshancock) shared an index laws and algebra task with a good level of challenge.

Nathan (@nathanday) shared a lovely task on graph intersections and solving simultaneous equations.

Nathan also shared some Susan Wall tasks. When I first qualified as a teacher I went on a course on how to teach A level Maths and that's where I was introduced to Susan Wall's brilliant tasks - I'm a big fan. Here are some examples shared by Nathan:

I also spotted that Nathan has shared a helpful Edexcel grade boundaries tool for A level Maths and Further Maths where you can very easily see grade boundaries by module. 

5. AS Level Statistics

I'm delighted to see the recent additions to the A level resources at 1stclassmaths.com/alevelrevision. These are brilliant and incredibly helpful. I've added the links to my A level library. 

Update

I'm looking forward to seeing lots of you at #mathsconf39 in London next month. I'll be presenting on Don Steward's wonderful resources, and I'll be out for post-conference drinks on Saturday night.

It's great to hear that MathsWorld is opening a discovery centre in London - I was totally unaware this was happening until my mum sent me an article about it! I can't see anything on their website or on social media about this. Assuming the article is correct, this might be a future school trip destination for schools in and around London.

I'm so used to getting my maths news from social media, it surprises me when I see it elsewhere. Last week I also spotted an article about an Ada Lovelace statue being erected in Leicestershire. I'm a big fan of Ada Lovelace and will no doubt visit this statue one day when I'm in the area. It can be added to the list of mathematical stuff to visit in the UK, along with Turing's statue in Manchester, Ramanujan's plaque in Putney, the beautiful Penrose tiles outside the Andrew Wiles building in Oxford, Newton's house in Grantham...  as I write this list I realise that there are a great many mathematical things to see - perhaps there's another blog post in this.

Finally, thank you to Hannah @neechmaths for posting something on Bluesky that made me laugh out loud... These are genuine Casio fx991CW calculator reviews on Amazon.

5 Maths Gems #186

Welcome to my 186^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. 1st Class Maths

One of my favourite websites, 1stclassmaths.com, has published a new set of practice papers - Higher and Foundation Paper 1 in the style of both AQA and Edexcel. More papers will be added during this summer's exam season. 

I love the quality of all the 1st Class Maths practice papers and resources. The questions are all original - these are not just collections of past paper questions. At my school we always make good use of these resources in our GCSE revision lessons. 

To give you an idea of the quality of the 1st Class Maths papers, here are a couple of the more challenging questions from the AQA-style higher paper:

2. OCR Puzzle of the Week

Every Friday OCR share a maths puzzle on social media using the hashtag #OCRMathspuzzle. I last featured these in a Gems post three years ago (Gems 154). Here are some recent examples.

By the way, if you're new to my blog then you might want to take a look at my back catalogue of gems posts. These posts are packed full of inspiration for both new and experienced maths teachers - they feature over ten years' worth of resources and ideas.

3. Dr Austin

Thank you to Amanda Austin for continuing to share so many new resources on draustinmaths.com. Her latest resources include tasks for quadratic inequalities, set notation, algebraic proof, equations, completing the square and proportion.

4. Guess the Angle

Thanks to @StudyMaths for sharing a new angle estimator.

 

This is one of many useful tools available on mathsbot.com - there are lots to explore. For example I recommend using the Sports Day timer on a phone to record race times on Sports Day. The Blackboard is very helpful if you're live modelling and you need a timer and calculator to hand. I also make a lot of use of the GCSE Countdown and the Grade Boundaries. The customisable graph paper and axes are also very helpful. 

5. Lessons from Dr Frost 

The team at Dr Frost continue to work on upgrading the PowerPoints on drfrost.org. These PowerPoints and accompanying resources can be downloaded for free and cover a wide range of topics from primary through to A level.

My friend @PaulRodrigo2718 is on the team of authors - his excellent set of lessons on bearings was recently published. His slides are full of clever explanations and animations. This slide on airport runways does a far better job of explaining runway numbers than I've done in the past (download the resource so you can see the animations).

If you visit the Dr Frost resources page then you'll see a list of lessons recently published. Here are a couple more extracts: 

From Properties of a Number Based on Prime Factorisation

From Adding and Subtracting Numbers in Standard Form

A level resource

For use in my recent Year 12 lessons I created a booklet for teaching Binomial Hypothesis Testing. There's lots of scaffolding in this. You can download it from TES or find it in my Statistics Resource Library.

Mathsconf37

I'm really looking forward to #mathsconf37 on 15th March in Sheffield. If you've not been to a mathsconf before then this would be a great time to try it out. It's always very inspiring to spend the day with maths teachers. Come to my workshop 'Fun with Factorising' if you like a bit of algebra. 

Speaking of conferences, I attended the Harris Federation Maths Conference on an Inset Day last week. The excellent Emma McCrea did the keynote, and I enjoyed a session on A level problem solving with Sinead Vaughan from the AMSP and a session on the Large Data Set with Jocelyn Stockbridge from Edexcel. Here's a photo of me with the members of my wonderful team who attended the conference.

I'll leave you with this graphic, created by @elephanteating. I knew that a pie chart was a Camembert Diagram in French but I didn't know about the rest! I love this.

5 Maths Gems #178

Welcome to my 178^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Inverse Proportion
I really like this tweet from @catrionateaches. When teaching inverse proportion I always talk about constant products but then I head straight into the formula y = k/x. Catriona suggests a subtle change in method. 

2. Graph Transformations

MathsPad has published another brilliant interactive tool for the Higher GCSE topic graph transformations. It shows how points on the original curves map on to those on the transformed curves. There is a separate section for quadratic graphs, which is particularly useful for relating completed square form to graph transformations. 

There is also a section for trigonometric graphs, where transformations of the graphs of y=sin(x) and y=cos(x) can be explored.

It's great to see a new resource published for teaching graph transformations - I always find that this is the GCSE topic for which it's trickiest to find suitable resources, because many tasks still include stretches (these were removed from the syllabus back in 2017 - GCSE now just covers reflections and translations).

Do check out MathsPad's full range of interactive tools - some of them are free to use even if you don't subscribe (you really should subscribe to MathsPad though!).

3. GeoGebra

It's worth following @geogebra to see ideas for interactive GeoGebra maths resources that can be used for demonstrations in lessons or student activities. Here are a few recent examples:

⚖️ GEOGEBRA RESOURCE! 📏

Try this FREE GeoGebra Exploration resource to convert units within a given system of measurement. Check it out! https://t.co/RQuWgxlNTR#mtbos #iteachmath #math #mathematics pic.twitter.com/qbp4U8DIFj

— GeoGebra (@geogebra) February 27, 2024

📦🐭 GEOGEBRA RESOURCE! 🥡🐱

Try this FREE GeoGebra Practice resource to draw box-and-whisker plots from a set of data. Check it out! https://t.co/VsqOGblJ2P#MTBoS #iteachmath #math #statistics pic.twitter.com/GAz9gbyLAR

— GeoGebra (@geogebra) February 27, 2024

🦾 GEOGEBRA RESOURCE! 🎰

Try this NEW & FREE GeoGebra Exploration resource to convert a number from standard form to expanded form one place value at a time. Check it out! https://t.co/vAIXvL5g48#MTBoS #iteachmath #math #mathematics pic.twitter.com/UXSN3RHQ69

— GeoGebra (@geogebra) March 4, 2024

4. Pythagoras
@nathanday314 shared a clever set of questions on Pythagoras' Theorem. There's a lot of challenge here (check out Question 12). Question 3 is deliberately impossible, and note the subtle differences between Questions 3, 4 and 5.

5. Prime Factors

@StudyMaths shared a video showing how to use the interactive Prime Factor Tiles on MathsBot to find a lowest common multiple, and in response @MrCowardMaths shared this really lovely task.

Update
Here are some other things you might have missed:

• The NCETM continue to publish their set of secondary mastery professional development materials. Their first set of Key Stage 4 materials focuses on numerical structure. These materials contain lots of teaching ideas that are well worth exploring. 
• @1stclassmaths has shared GCSE Predicted Paper 1 for both Edexcel and AQA. After Paper 1 takes place in May he will publish Predicted Paper 2s, and after Paper 2 he will publish Predicted Paper 3s. These papers will be very high quality so I recommend following @1stclassmaths for updates.
• @cclay8 has shared some more of her excellent calculator guides for the new Casio model. 
• @MattTheApp continues to share numerous resources for GCSE preparation on Maths White Board including maths formula sheet familiarisation tasks.
• @AMercerMaths shared a fantastic example of a curriculum booklet on diagonals in quadrilaterals. 

My school is still seeking an A level teacher to start in September. I can offer 100% A level teaching, or alternatively I can offer a timetable with Year 11 - 13 (or similar) if that's more desirable. Our students are a delight to teach and my team is awesome. If you live in Surrey or South London, this is an amazing opportunity. Please get in touch (email resourceaholic@gmail.com) if you're interested - I'm very happy to arrange a tour or call.

I'm presenting at two maths conferences in the next four weeks. The first is #mathsconf34 which is near Bristol:

And in the Easter holidays I'm presenting at the Shape Up conference in Stratford-Upon-Avon:

Finally, it's been a while since I've hosted a social event so I'm excited about this... more information coming soon.

5 Maths Gems #159

Welcome to my 159^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers. 

1. Proportional Relationships
@nathanday314 shared some questions that he used in a Year 9 lesson. He says they provoked fantastic discussion amongst his students. Notice the connections between each question.

2. Area of Trapezium

@steelemaths shared a creative trapezium task. 

3. Circle Theorems and Similarity
I love these Higher GCSE questions shared by @DrPMaths.

4. Using Geogebra
@Mr_Rowlandson has created an excellent training booklet for secondary maths teachers who are learning how to use Geogebra. Thanks Paul! 

5. Pie Charts and Bearings

@giftedHKO shared loads of excellent resources at #mathsconf29. I particularly like this clever bearings task:

And this lovely proportional thinking task on pie charts:

Update

It seems like a ridiculously long time since my last post. I can't handle the workload that my role brings in the second half of the summer term (timetabling, running assessments and reports, primary transition, etc etc, and all without the luxury of gained time because we only have Years 7 to 10!). Thankfully next year things will be different, as I'm changing roles, and I hope to be able to give resourceaholic more of my time.

Despite the challenges of the summer term, I did (of course!) make time for mathsconf last weekend. I have done a mathsconf every June since 2015. I love it when these conferences take place in Kettering because it's so easy to get to by train (except when there's a national train strike...).

Thank you to everyone who attended my talk 'Challenge in Every Topic' which I particularly enjoyed planning and delivering. It was one of my favourites. I've decided not to share the slides here so I can repeat the workshop at conferences in the future, but delegates have been sent the slides by La Salle.

I also had the privilege of attending the MEI Conference on Thursday and Friday. I was given two days away from school to attend this, which I am incredibly grateful for. The conference was sponsored by Casio who not only provided the best conference goody bags ever (including Casio hoodies!) but also funded seemingly endless wine with the conference dinner! Yay for Casio. 

The MEI Conference has a very different vibe to the Saturday mathsconfs. It's more academic, moves at a different pace and feels highly collaborative (there were lots of opportunities to have deep, reflective discussions with both fellow teachers and maths education experts). 

I had a great time at both events, and now have a lot of ideas buzzing in my head for September.

I also enjoyed wearing my two new maths t shirts to these conferences! (both from Redbubble - I ended up getting one for free because they messed up my order!).

Here are a few things you might have missed in recent weeks:

• Simon Singh is hosting free online maths circles. He runs four interactive circles every week for children from ages 9 to 18. For more information check out parallel.org.uk.
• I enjoyed reading two threads recently about teaching particular topics. They are both worth a read. @blatherwick_sam tweeted about teaching vectors and @VMN_alex tweeted about angles in parallel lines.
• Here's one to share with your science colleagues. I love these science root word cards from @fabdisalvo. I've blogged about a maths version in the past. 

• Sparx Maths has produced a free Year 6 - Year 7 Transition Booklet. Here they've collated a list of 130 questions to support Year 6 students' transitioning into Year 7. You can download it here.
• La Salle recently released a free 128-page Task Booklet. It's a collection of carefully crafted tasks which aim to promote mathematical thinking and behaviour in the classroom.

I plan to write a few blog posts over summer about challenge at Key Stage 3, so do look out for them.

Finally, have you seen the lovely new maths sets from Helix? They sent me a few to try out. I love the colours, and the fact they are made from recycled materials. Thanks Helix!