5 Maths Gems #200

Welcome to my 200^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. MathsPad
MathsPad's May and July updates includes lots of fantastic new resources.

Their Topic Key Facts Sheets are designed in a two-column question and answer format, so that pupils can self-test by covering up the second column. Very helpful for revision at Key Stage 3 and 4, they can be found at the top right of their curriculum pages.

MathsPad has also shared two packs of 'Grade 9 Club' Question Packs: Pack A and Pack B. These include worked solutions for each question. 

They have also published a series of Foundation One Markers containing non-calculator one mark questions for GCSE Foundation on a mixture of topics. The skills recur from one sheet to the next, so pupils get repeated practice of each skill.

There's other new resources too, including more in the Building Blocks range (aimed at secondary school students who need support with the basics), more Higher GCSE revision packs, and an inverse functions matching activity. We love MathsPad at my school - it's well worth the subscription.

2. X Why
Andy of m4th5.co.uk has shared a graphing tool for classroom use: X Why. It can be used to see graph transformations happen, draw instant inverses, put your own labels on curves and points, see integrals and areas under curves, draw tangents and normals and much more. Graphs can be exported to worksheets and presentations, and axes are auto-scaled for degrees and radians.

3. NCETM Professional Development Materials

The final set of the NCETM's Key Stage 4 Professional Development Materials is now available, completing the full suite of Secondary Mastery Professional Development Materials for both KS3 and KS4. This set covers Key Stage 4 Geometry including transformations, circle theorems, trigonometry and 3D shapes. As with the other sets, these materials contain lots of fantastic ideas for getting your students thinking. For example, there's a task where students are asked to identify which of the diagrams correctly show the alternate segment theorem.

I also like what they've done here with bearings diagrams in non-standard orientations...

... and I like relating vectors to throwing a ball.

4. A level 
In my last lesson with Year 12 this Friday I will be teaching Year 2 Binomial Expansion with Partial Fractions - I never understand how anyone manages to fit the entire A level curriculum into such limited time! I'm perpetually running behind with my A level classes. But if you have a spare lesson with Year 12 at the end of term, they might enjoy this murder mystery revision task from Danielle @PixiMaths. You can download it here.

Another A Level resource that caught my eye recently was a set of statistics tasks posted by MrLevMaths. Read his blog post for more.

5. Esheets and Whiteboard Workouts
I discovered two websites that aren't new, but I've not seen them before. 

esheets.io from Richard Linnington features self marking worksheets, maths puzzles and games (including end of term maths activities) and teacher visualisation tools. I particularly like the sheep tethered to a building and sheep with a sliding ring.

Whiteboard Workouts from southportmaths.co.uk are PowerPoints that are designed for mini whiteboard questioning.

A Milestone
I started this blog whilst on maternity leave in April 2014. My first post was about a method for matrix multiplication. A lot of my earlier posts were about methods. Later I started writing more about resources. I wrote my first gems post in August 2014, when I realised that there were loads of great ideas and resources being shared on Twitter that needed to be shared more widely, so that all the maths teachers in the country (and beyond) could see them, not just the teachers using social media. Over the years I've been contacted by many teachers who tell me that they find these posts helpful, so I continue to write them. There are a number of authors and websites that have 'found fame' after they featured in my posts! 

Today I've published my 518th blog post, which is the 200th post in the Maths Gems series. I used to post gems posts every week, but it was impossible to continue posting so frequently as my daughters grew older, and my school workload increased. Now I try to write one gems post a month, but it can be difficult to find enough material since the mass exodus of maths teachers from Twitter. Back when the new GCSE was introduced in 2017, social media was packed full of teachers sharing resources and helping each other out - with another curriculum change on the horizon, maybe we will regain some of that magic once day. In the meantime, I will endeavour to continue posting once a month. If you're new to my blog then I recommend having a look at my back catalogue of gems posts. There's a lot of great stuff in them. 

Events
I had a fantastic time at the MEI Conference as always. I attended on Thursday evening for the dinner and drinks (free bar courtesy of Casio!) and all day on the Friday. I presented on methods to a lovely audience, and enjoyed trying some incredibly difficult geometry problems with Bernard Murphy. Sue Black's keynote was excellent. Shout out to Marc the tutor who sat with me and Megan Guinan after my session and showed us a fun method for factorising non-monic quadratics.

Looking ahead at events that are coming up...

• On the last two days of the summer term my headteacher has kindly given me permission to attend the Future of Maths Education event which is being held by XTX Markets. This is an invite-only event and I'm delighted to be on the guest list. I believe I'm the only teacher attending - in fact I have to go there directly after running a Year 7 trip so I'm expecting to be thoroughly exhausted... but I am really looking forward to it. 
• Mathsconf41 has been announced - it's taking place in Liverpool on 5th September. A conference at the very start of the academic year is a fantastic idea - the perfect timing to inspire and motivate. I'm not sure yet whether I'll attend - as both a mum of teenagers and Head of Department I have a feeling I'll have a million things to do that weekend. But I hate to miss a mathsconf so I will have to have a think about this one!
• BCME 10 is a big deal in the world of maths education, and it takes place in Nottingham on October 23rd and 24th. I loved the last BCME in 2018. To cut the cost for teachers, bursaries and early bird rates are available but you have to act now to take advantage of these opportunities (the deadline for bursaries is this week! And the early bird rate is valid until the end of July). Information about bursaries is here. I would apply for one myself but my school isn't in an area of high deprivation so I don't qualify. I really encourage teachers who meet the criteria to apply for a bursary to help cover the cost - it's so important that teachers attend this conference.

Update

What an insanely busy time at school! Our classrooms were sweltering when it was 37 degrees and we had a few early closures in response to parent concerns about students travelling home in the extreme weather. We also had new staff induction and Sports Day last week (Sports Day picture of my maths team below - minus four members who were busy elsewhere!). Plus I've been hosting lots of visitors in my department who come to see my curriculum in action and find out how we do things. This week is Open Evening and Year 10 are on work experience, and then the following week there are a whole load of trips to run. As I said in my post Tasks for the Summer Term, this time of year is always surprisingly busy! And the delay of SATs results will have me working in the summer holidays (even more so than usual) because I use them for Year 7 groupings.

Have a great week! Thanks for reading.

5 Math Gems #199

Welcome to my 199^th gems post. This is where I share some of the latest news, ideas and resources for maths teachers.

1. Trimension

Following on from the release of Vectorama (Gems 197) and Graphiti (Gems 196), Neil Kendall has completed a third project 'Trimension'. This tool allows the construction of 3D models to help illustrate 3D Pythagoras and trigonometry problems. The key feature is the ability to extract internal triangles into a flat diagram. Neil has included four pre-built examples from past GCSE papers to illustrate what it can do (just go to add > examples).

This is a fantastic tool for teaching 3D Pythagoras and trignonomety - thank you Neil!

2. Interwoven Maths

Nathan Day (‪@nathanday) has made some updates to his excellent website interwovenmaths.com, including a new page of small tasks and a contents page showing all the resources and ideas now available on the site.

There's loads to explore on Interwoven Maths including this Quadratics Always Sometimes Never.

Nathan also shared Class Duels - a maths game featuring over fifty topics from across Key Stage 3 to 5. It can be played in two-player mode (split screen, which can be done on an interactive whiteboard) and single-player mode. 

3. Exam Countdown

Nathan Day also shared a newly updated Edexcel Exam Countdown page which includes both GCSE and A level (including Further Maths) and shows dates for 2027. Interestingly, there are two GCSE papers before half term next year, and A level Paper 1 is before half term too.

4. A level

@andrewmaths1 posted a link to a website that I've not seen before. mathstutorneri.com is great for students aiming for an A*. There's a booklet of challenge problems and a set of exam papers.

It's nice to have another website we can use for high challenge. We've always directed our A* students to MadasMaths which I first blogged about in 2016. This week's Edexcel A Level Paper 1 had two questions that were very similar to MadasMaths questions, so clearly it's a good idea to use this website! If you're not familiar with MadasMaths, there's IYGB practice papers for maths and further maths (don't ask what IYGB stands for...!) and there are also booklets by topic. I often use questions from these booklets in my maths and further maths lessons (tip for new users: zoom in on the PDFs to see full worked solutions hiding in the booklets). 

5. Tasks 
There's been a number of new tasks and resources shared on Bluesky and Twitter in the last few weeks.

Here's a nice task from ‪@4301maths on equations of parallel lines. 

@dalechapman shared a couple of tasks: one on simultaneous equations and one on constructions.

@canning_mrmaths shared a Quadratic Graphs Venn task designed for learners to think deeply about different features of quadratic functions. The task has four variations levelling up in difficulty.

@giftedHKO shared some distance time graph questions.

And @draustinmaths.com shared some new resources for simultaneous equations.

Thank you to everyone who shares resources!

Update

We're halfway through external exam season (for my department, eight exams down and eight more to go!). This is what we've had at my school so far:

• AQA GCSE: Paper 1 was nice! I thought Paper 2 was difficult on both Foundation and Higher Tier. On Higher there was a question where students had to draw a two way table and some of them said they didn't know what that was!  Eek, there goes four marks. Yet if they'd been given a two way table to interpret or fill in the gaps they would have had no problem. So we must get them drawing more two way tables in lessons! There were two questions on Foundation requiring equating coefficients - we need to change our Foundation scheme of work to ensure this is explicitly taught in future. One paper to go!
• Edexcel A Level: Paper 1 was difficult. There were some tough questions, fiddly answers and a few questions where students would be unable to do part b without managing part a which is frustrating. Some of our students have lost a bit of confidence but hopefully Paper 2 will give all students the chance to show what they know. The Further Maths (Core Pure) papers were both ok and I'm looking forward to Further Statistics 1 this Friday (my favourite module!).
• AQA GCSE Statistics: We switched to AQA this year and our students were pleased with Paper 1. We entered Year 10 for the first time (see my post about our Option Block Experiment) - they were terrified going into the exam, but all smiles coming out! 

For 'best guess' papers please continue to check Adam Creen's dropbox which includes GCSE (maths and statistics) and A level.

My recent post aimed at Heads of Maths Tasks for the Summer Term went down well - I've had lots of emails asking for advice and resources. I'm always happy to help but bear with me at this time of year when there's so much going on at school - I will always reply within a week!

I'm looking forward to the MEI Conference next month - always one of the highlights of the year! I hope to see lots of you there. I will leave you with this fantastic present gifted to Emily Rae by a student - I love this!

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 be 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!