Sherlock Holmes Competition: starts tomorrow…

Don’t forget, our Sherlock Holmes competition starts tomorrow.

If you’ve been looking for a fun way to “distract” your pupils into learning AO2 and AO3 skills for the new AQA GCSE Maths specification, this is it!

All details of the competition can be found on this page of our blog.  And click here for the  SMALL  print.

Welcome Back! Time to get to grips with the new GCSE?

First of all, a warm welcome back to all of our subscribers! 

The new school year is underway (almost), and with it come new qualifications and new issues.  Functional Maths is going live, and even more importantly, the new GCSE specifications are now live.

The new Maths GCSE is built on problem-solving: 50% of marks will be awarded for so-called AO2 and AO3 questions.  If you know all about these already, great.  But if you don’t, be on your guard – these questions are different and might catch your students out.  Watch this 3 minute video from Examiner and Author, Glyn Payne:

AO-who? Watch a 3-minute explanation of AO2 and AO3 - it might make all the difference...

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.)

Longman AQA resources: Free Class Tracker for Maths GCSE

Sometimes it can be hard to get excited by a spreadsheet…  But we may have managed it.  We’ve just finalised the Class Progress Charts for our AQA GCSE Assessment Pack: one for Foundation sets, one for Middle, and one for Higher.  We know most people would run a mile if we said the spreadsheets had great functionality…  But they do! 

Extract of the "Class Progress Chart" in the Longman AQA GCSE Assessment Pack

The Class Progress Charts (or trackers) allow teachers to record pupil progress end-to-end through a GCSE course.  For example: the Assessment Pack contains Course entry tests for each Unit – input the results into the tracker, and it will suggest a target GCSE grade.  Handy for setting students. 

Another example: the Assessment Pack contains a diagnostic test for every Student Book chapter – input these results into the tracker, and it will tell you which students are on course to meet their target GCSE grade and which are falling behind.  Particularly handy for middle sets when deciding which tier to enter students. 

Click here to download the Charts (Foundation, Middle & Higher).  This link will take you through to our website: scroll down until you see the title Assessment Pack, and the links are just underneath. (We would post the files here, but this blog cannot host Excel…)

Click here to find out more about the AQA GCSE Assessment Pack, or click here to order one.

World Cup maths: the route to the Final!

You may have been wondering how England are going to reach the World Cup Final?

Well, here’s a chance for you and your students to solve that problem, literally.  Click below for some nifty functional maths questions, and you can help Wayne Rooney navigate his way across South Africa:

Help Wayne and Coleen find their way to Cape Town. Click to download pdf.

Quick tip: this activity is ideal for display on a whiteboard.  Once you’ve downloaded the pdf, press Control+L for full screen display.

Looking for other Functional teaching resources?

Click here to see our free World Cup wall chart.  Keep your Maths classroom up-to-date with events in South Africa!

We’ve also blogged these recently: Countdown to the World Cup (fractions), Wind power (formulae, Level 2) Election Maths (handling data, percentages), Volcano Maths (probability; distance-speed-time),  Maths in the Roof Garden (volume, area, perimeter – Level 1), Of Rock Festivals and Number Skills (interpreting data, number skills – Level 1).

A-A* Practice Book: free sample chapters

  

Some rivers are easier to cross than others... Sample question on the Millau Suspension Bridge from A-A* book. Click to enlarge.

We published our A-A* Practice Book last week. It’s the only book in the market we can find, which targets top grade candidates and future A-Level stars.  And it’s our answer to anyone who says Maths GCSE is being dumbed down.  The book is full of engaging, colourful questions – all of them clearly graded and labelled like the AO2 sample above on the Millau Suspension bridge (Chapter 4 on Accuracy in calculations).  

And here’s a Challenge Yourself question from the Proportionality chapter:

Challenge Yourself... Or better still, challenge your students. Sample question on proportionality. Click to enlarge.

Challenge Yourself questions in every section offer some fun and danger to the brightest students – the questions go beyond GCSE but the underlying maths doesn’t.  We blogged some other samples a few months back – Mean, Meaner, Meanest – as well as answers. 

Click here to download free sample Chapter 3, Proportionality, or Chapter 4, Accuracy in calculations. 

The A-A* Practice Book can be ordered here.

G-F Practice Book sent to press

We just sent our G-F Practice Book to press.  Big moment: this is the first of our 5 Practice Books to go to press. It’s our only write-in book and, as far as we know, unique in the market.  There are no other dedicated G-F resources around. 

Differentiation is a big part of what we’re trying to achieve with our AQA GCSE series.  We’ve already blogged about our A-A* Practice Book – click here to find out more about the other targeted resources in the series.

Below is a sample spread.  You’ll see that we’ve included:

• Practice for Functional questions & the new Assessment Objectives
• Key Points to recap formulae and methods, and
• Assess Yourself panels in every section so students can track their own progress. 

Click to see pdf version –

G-F Practice Book sample – click to see pdf

Click here to order copies of the G-F Practice Book.  Or click here to order a free Evaluation Pack for the whole AQA series, which includes a copy of the Middle sets Student Book.