20% VAT – dumbing down maths!

The life of a GCSE maths author is never easy, and a good deal of effort went into making sure that we included both the 15% VAT rate, when we started writing Longman AQA GCSE Maths, and the 2010 VAT rate of 17.5% when we published the resources.

And now, in the interests of bailing out the bank-bail-out, we  know that from January 2011, VAT will be charged at 20%.

So the delights of realising that 17.5% can easily be found by halving 10% twice (as it were), become less real-life-relevant than we’d like!

And a diverse collection of views is gathering at TES Connect. To paraphrase one comment: ‘If only they understood what a percentage is…’ (Guess they’re talking about students rather than politicians here?)

VAT increase calculator

If you want to start comparing rates and price rises straight away, thisismoney.co.uk is a great website - click for their ready-made calculator!

The really great news, though, is NOT extending VAT to books!!

World Cup Round-up: Summary of our FREE Maths Classroom activities

As we come to terms with England’s defeat at the weekend to Germany (or rejoice at it, depending on your point of view), we thought this would provide an appropriate moment briefly to re-cap the football-themed resources we’ve produced in recent weeks.

In chronological order, with the most recent posts first:

World Cup Maths: The Curse of the Jabulani - 3D shapes and nets

(Seriously, was this prophetic on some level?  Two days after we posted it, England’s crucial 2nd half goal against Germany is disallowed…)

World Cup Maths: The Mathematician’s Guide to Penalty Shoot-outs - Pythagoras, trigonometry, quadratics, probability

UPDATED World Cup Wall Chart: Free to download - Averages, probability, relative frequency

World Cup maths: the route to the Final! - Number skills, distance-speed-time, scatter graphs

(This activity has been the biggest hit with teachers…)

Cup Final Maths – Free resource! - fractions, decimals, percentages

Countdown to the World Cup! - fractions

(…and this one has been the second biggest hit.)

Maths doesn’t have to be linear (small “l”)…

There’s no single formula (ah-hm) governing how we should teach maths, and there are plenty of strong opinions.

Here’s one very eloquently expressed view that we found on the Prezi site (Prezi is a website that allows you to put together funky-looking presentations, click on the graphic below to see more):

Is Maths circular then? Click to find out.

Our thanks to Alison Bank who created the presentation and to Lewis Birchon for bringing it to our attention (one of many helpful tips).

Exercise your mental maths!

As an antidote to all that couch potato-ing for the World Cup, have a go at this free maths activity – the Running Track (Speed) Game from our Level Up Maths  Key Stage 3 maths resource!

Questions are set at a basic numeracy/mental maths level so you can use it for warming up before a lesson, or as a competitive finale!

Ever wanted to run a race in a giraffe suit? Now’s your chance!

Level Up Maths 'Racetrack' Game

Click here to get to the starting line…

World Cup Maths: The Curse of the Jabulani

As the England.v.Germany match approaches, some of you (or your Maths class) may be worrying about the Jabulani football, which has been creating so many headlines at the World Cup…

We’ve put together a poster, explaining why this football is so different to other footballs…  And included some questions about the nets of 3D objects.  These should provide a neat activity for a Functional Maths lesson and help bring these complex issues closer to home (AQA Functional Maths spec Level 2: “recognise and use 2D representations of 3D objects”, p.11) -

Is the Jabulani really so evil? Click to download full pdf.

Well, the World Cup may be over for England by Monday…  If so, we promise to stop blogging so intensively about it!

World Cup Maths: The Mathematician’s Guide to Penalty Shoot-outs

With England.v.Germany looming on Sunday, we thought we’d give you a sneak preview of how England are preparing for another of their famous penalty shoot-outs!

We have produced a new World Cup Maths activity.  To advise Steven Gerrard and the boys on their penalty strategy, your students will need to use a combination of trigonometry, quadratics and distance-speed-time.  We’ve also thrown in some probability questions for good measure.  GCSE grades have been applied to all the questions to give an indication of difficulty level.

This activity spread is free for our subscribers.  The good news for maths teachers is that subscribing to this blog is cost-free, spam-free and hassle-free.  Just enter your school email address in the box on the top right of the screen.

World Cup Maths activity: penalty shoot-out. Click to view. Full pdf available to subscribers.

Click here to download the accompanying worksheet.

How exactly do I subscribe to this blog and when do I get the Penalty shoot-out activity?

Just enter your school email address in the box top right.  You’ll then receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription.  Once you’ve accepted that, we’ll email the activity out to you as a pdf, along with the accompanying worksheet.

Why should I subscribe to this blog?

You will receive each of our posts by email, about 2-4 per week.  We never spam our subscribers, and we never share details with any third parties.  Oh, and subscription to this blog is free, has always been free and will always be free. 

Our subscribers are part of our community of maths teachers, we value them and they will continue to receive free resources not available to all browsers of this blog.

UPDATED World Cup Wall Chart: Free to download

World Cup Maths

Well, what a day yesterday was… 

England squeezed a victory over Slovenia, USA stole our position at the top of the table in the dying minutes of their match, and so now we face Germany on Sunday (more on that later…)  Oh yes, and two blokes at Wimbledon decided the best way to stay in their competition was to avoid finishing the match at all.

Anyway, here’s an updated World Cup wall chart, with all the scores up until Tuesday filled in:

World Cup wall chart - the story so far... Click to download full pdf

Subscribe to this blog by 30th June and receive THREE FREE Practice Books!

For any Maths teachers who subscribes to this blog by the end of the month, we will be sending THREE FREE AQA GCSE Practice Books (with apologies for the tongue twister!)  

Just enter your school email address in the box on the right hand side of this page, click the button, and we’ll send the following books out to your school address:

Why should I subscribe to this blog?

You will receive each of our posts by email, about 2-4 per week.  We never spam our subscribers, and we never share details with any third parties.  Oh, and subscription to this blog is free, has always been free and will always be free. 

Our subscribers are part of our community of maths teachers, we value them and they will continue to receive free resources not available to all browsers of this blog.

Where do I find a sample?

Click here to see some sample chapters from our G-F Practice Book.

Click here to see some sample chapters from our unique A-A* Practice Book.

And click here to see page samples from all five Practice Books - as well as all the other products in our AQA GCSE 2010 Maths series.

Note to our existing subscribers…

If you’re already one of our subscribers and want to receive any or all of these Practice Books, just let us know!  You’re very welcome.  Click on “Leave a comment”, and send a request that way.  The comment will not be published (unless you want us to) – it will just be read by the team here.

AQA GCSE Practice Books: Digital Editions published

We’re pleased to report that we’ve just published the Digital Editions for all five of our Practice Books: G-F, Foundation sets, Middle sets, Higher sets, and A-A*.

Our strategy has been to publish everything in this series in print format and in digital format.  The Digital Editions are available as CD’s, here are a few useful details:

• Built on our popular ActiveTeach platform
• Will integrate on your computer with any other digital resources from the series, providing a single point of access
• Suitable for modular or linear courses
• Contain a complete set of Practice exam papers (linear and modular)
• Contain a complete set of answers
• Contain an additional set of pdf’s for printing out any chapter

Click on any of the covers above to order a copy for purchase or on approval. 

Click here to learn more about Longman’s new resources for the new 2010 spec, or to order a FREE Evaluation Pack.

Congratulations to our Prize Draw winners!

Congratulations to the five winners of  our Prize Draw in May – we’ve sent them a £20 Amazon voucher each!

Remember: at the end of every month we hold a free Prize Draw for all our subscribers.  To be eligible, you just have to be a Maths teacher and a subscriber to this blog. 

Why should I subscribe to this blog?

Subscribing to this blog is cost-free, spam-free and hassle -free.  Just enter your school email address in the box on the top right of the screen, under where it says “Don’t miss a thing!”

You will receive each of our posts by email, about 2-4 per week.  We never spam our subscribers.  Our subscribers are part of our community of maths teachers, we value them and they will continue to receive free resources not available to all browsers of this blog.

Here’s the  S M A L L  P R I N T  about our Prize Draw

Terms and conditions:
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.