AQA GCSE Maths Linear Specification Summary available

AQA have posted their Linear Summary Guide as a reminder about this important new specification for 2010.

AQA Linear Summary Guide

We know of some schools who are planning to continue a mix-and-match between Modular and Linear to suit the particular needs of their students.

And for each of Longman’s resources – Higher sets, Middle sets and Foundation sets – we supply Linear Schemes of Work as well as Modular.

Here’s the Linear Overview of the Scheme of Work for Middle sets taking Foundation Papers. And here’s the full Linear Scheme of Work for Middle sets taking Foundation or Higher.

In the Linear SoW we suggest a teaching order. If this isn’t your preferred order, we supply the files as editable Word documents in a CD-ROM in the back of the relevant Teacher Guide.

Functional Maths Student Book: Free sample on wind power and formulae

Our AQA Functional Maths Student Book is publishing in June, and here’s a free sample we thought we’d share along the way.   It comes from a Level 2 chapter on formulae.

Each chapter starts with “Practise the Maths”, an opportunity for students to make sure they have the basic skills needed before tackling functional questions:

Practise the Maths: Formulae, Level 2. Click to enlarge.

Then come the functional questions.  In this chapter, the context is wind power and wind turbines:

Wind power & formulae - sample Functional Maths spread. Click to enlarge.

Looking for other free Functional teaching resources?

We’ve blogged these recently: Election Maths (handling data, percentages), Volcano Maths (probability; distance-speed-time), Countdown to the World Cup (fractions) Maths in the Roof Garden (volume, area, perimeter), Of Rock Festivals and Number Skills (interpreting data, number skills).

Confused by developments in Functional Maths this year? 

Click here to see a Survivor’s Guide to Functional Maths in 2010, and click here to see the Functional Maths resources that we will be publishing.

Subscribe to this blog by 5pm tomorrow (Friday) and enter our FREE Prize Draw!

At 5pm tomorrow, Friday 30th April, we’re holding an end-of-month prize draw for five £20 Amazon vouchers.  This will be open to all Maths teachers who have subscribed to this blog. 

Just enter your school email address in the box at the top right of the screen and click on the button, “Subscribe!”  You will then receive our new posts by email.  We post about 4 times per week and do not spam our subscribers.

If you’re reading this and you’ve already subscribed to this blog, your name will be entered in the draw as well.   Why not forward this message to any maths teaching colleagues?  

(True, it might reduce your chance of winning by a small fraction, but if your colleague wins we’re sure they’ll buy you something on Amazon…!)

A note about us: This blog is being written for Maths teachers, with a focus on AQA GCSE & Functional Maths 2010.   We’re writing it to keep teachers informed about developments at AQA, to share free teaching resources & Schemes of Work, and to gather feedback about the resources we’re publishing for AQA 2010.  The About Us page will tell you more.

Click here for the terms and conditions of the prize draw.

Election Maths! Functional Maths resource for schools

General Election, 6th May 2010 – the Big Day approaches!

With that in mind, here’s an Election Maths activity to tease out the handling data and percentages skills of your class:

Election maths activity: click to enlarge

Click here to see last week’s post on the General Election.

And here are some free Functional Maths activities, which we’ve posted recently: Volcano Maths (probability; distance-speed-time), Countdown to the World Cup (fractions) Maths in the Roof Garden (volume, area, perimeter), Of Rock Festivals and Number Skills (interpreting data, number skills).

The future of schools – what does Nick Clegg think?

With the second live Leaders’ Debate coming up tonight at 8pm, and with the Lib Dems riding high after last week’s debate, we decided to have a quick look at Lib Deb policy on schools.

We found nothing specific to Maths in the Lib Dem manifesto.  But here are some general highlights, which would impact on Maths teachers.  (This is just what we’ve dug up – there is of course no substitute for reading the manifesto itself.)

Standards and Curriculum

• The Lib dems would replace QCDA and Ofqual with a “fully independent educational standards authority (ESA)”
• “Axe the rigid National Curriculum and replace it with a slimmed down ‘minimum curriculum entitlement’”
• “Scale back KS2 tests at age 11 and use teacher assesment…”
• They would reform league tables, in particular to reduce importance of borderline C

Teacher Remuneration

• “Reform the existing rigid national pay and conditions rules to give schools and colleges more freedom, including offering financial and other incentives to attract and retain excellent teachers, while ensuring that all staff receive the minimum national pay award.”

 The manifesto also includes a commitment to cut class sizes.  “An average Primary school could cut class sizes to 20.  An average secondary school could see classes of just 16.”

We’ll be blogging highlights from the other two parties’ policies later in the election campaign.

AQA GCSE Maths blog subscriptions mean prizes!

All subscribers to our blog will be entered into a free monthly prize draw to win one of five £20 Amazon vouchers!

It’s easy to subscribe – all you have to do is enter your school email address in the box to the right, and then confirm your subscription by clicking on the link in the email we’ll send you. That’s it!

When you become a subscriber, you’ll receive an email each time we add a new post to this blog – no more than 3 to 5 a week – so you can keep up to date with all the latest news, information, special offers and free resources in the world of AQA GCSE Maths 2010.

The boring stuff we have to put here…

Terms and conditions for the monthly prize draw:
1. This prize draw is run by Pearson Education of Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex. CM20 2JE.
2. The prize is one of five £20 Amazon vouchers.
3. Entry to the prize draw is through subscribing to the AQA GCSE Maths blog. Existing subscribers will also be entered into the monthly draw. 
4. Closing date for the prize draw is 1700 on the last working day of each month, until further notice . Five winners will be selected at random each month and informed by email.
5. Our decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
6. The prize draw is not open to any employees of Pearson Education or their families.

Maths goes volcanic!

Activity based on a certain unpronounceable Icelandic volcano

Always ready to find the maths in real life, we’ve probably come up with some maths that has a bearing on the recent volcanic unpleasantness…

Here’s the activity sheet with a worksheet to help dust off your students’ knowledge.

Remember this memory improvement presentation

Exam Cafe memory improvement tips

As revision time approaches, your students might find this quick presentation on memory improvement skills useful.

Exam Cafe memory improvement

Don’t forget our 25% discount!

To help you stretch your budget a little bit further, we’re offering a special 25% discount on all orders of £1,000 or more on our brand-new AQA GCSE Maths 2010 resources.

Visit our website, add the titles you want to your basket, and enter the code S01AQM0 at the checkout – it’s as simple as that!  To save hassle, you can even email your basket to your Bursar or Finance Officer and track your order online with myaccount.

If you prefer to speak to a real person – just give our Customer Services team a call on 0845 630 33 33 – and don’t forget to give them the code S01AQM0 to claim your discount!

This offer ends on 31st July 2010, so get your order in quick and make the most of your budget this term!

G-F Practice Book published! Sample chapters available to download

Copies of our AQA Maths G-F Practice Book have landed on our desks!  We’ve opened them with the usual mixture of nerves and pride…

The good news is, the book looks great.  We’re confident teachers will like it.  It’s the only book available giving focussed support for these grades.  The Assess Yourself panels in each section work nicely and the write-in format should be helpful for this ability group.

(But yes, we have spotted one flaw.  It’s a small design error and I’m sure we’ll be the only ones who notice it.  At least we hope we are…)

It’s worth mentioning that we’re also selling a Digital Edition of this Practice Book.  In fact all the products in our AQA GCSE Maths series are available in both print and digital formats.

Click on the snapshot below to download three sample chapters from Unit 2, Number and Algebra (it’s a 3MB file so might take a moment or two to load):

G-F Sample – click to download chapters 11-13

 

If you want to look up any other titbits from the book, we’ve blogged about it twice before – one post last month when we sent it to press, and one in December.