I'm delighted that the Easter holidays have arrived but I think I'll need to spend a bit of time over the break creating new revision resources to use this summer. My school opened seven years ago so this is the first time we'll have A level exams. And we've been running our new option block course (GCSE Statistics and L2 Further Maths) for two years so we have those exams for the first time too. I have responsibility for running revision and exam warm ups for sixteen exams this summer....! For Year 11 that's three papers for GCSE maths, two for GCSE Statistics, and two for Level 2 Further Maths. For Year 13 it's three papers for A level maths and four for A level Further Maths. Plus our Year 12s take AS Further Maths too, so that's another two. Some of these exams are even happening on the same day which seems a bit inconsiderate of the people who write the exam timetable! It's going to be a very busy term with all the exam warms ups and revision sessions and everything else going on. Exciting times though. I love the summer term!
GCSE Maths
For GCSE there are already an incredible number of revision resources available. The qualification is well established and there are now so many resources it can feel a bit overwhelming - see my GCSE revision page for lots of examples. We don't need to make GCSE breakfast warm ups because we have the warms ups I made back in 2018 - we always find that these work really well. The main new resources we need every year are the 'best guess' papers and checklists that are made between exams - they are really helpful and I very much appreciate the people who make them (I particularly love the papers produced by 1st Class Maths) - I know it takes a lot of effort on tight deadlines. This year there aren't any GCSE exams on the day before Maths GCSE Paper 2 so this has worked out well - it means we can invite Year 11 in to do a 'Predicted Paper 2' session that day.
I had a double Year 11 lesson last week where I wanted to do something a bit different. We'd already been doing topic-based revision lessons for four weeks. After Easter I plan to move to mainly mixed-topic revision lessons (a mix of exam papers and revision mats). But for the last lesson of the Spring term I decided I wanted to do a quiz, so I made one. It's here if you want to borrow and adapt it.
This version was made specifically for my Set 5 class which is our lowest class on the Higher Tier. The students in this class should (fingers crossed) get a Grade 5, 6 or 7 this summer. The quiz starts very easy but gets harder. There are fifty questions and most of my students scored in the thirties, although the winner scored 49 out of 50. This quiz could easily be adapted for a Foundation class (my colleague Will has done this - his version is also here) or for a GCSE class working at higher grades. There are plenty of quiz questions to choose from on my 'Things to Memorise' resource.
There are a few different ways you could use this resource. Students could work in groups and write their answers down on paper and mark them at the end. I don't know if this is the most effective approach in terms of maximising their learning though. We want every student to use their brain to try and remember facts, and if they are in a group with someone who is very quick then they won't have the opportunity to do this. So doing the quiz in teams might make it a pointless exercise for the slower half the class. Instead, I ran it individually - students wrote their answers on mini whiteboards and showed me when instructed. This meant I could see and respond to common misconceptions, and I could make quick, subtle, individual corrections where needed. The questions lent themselves well to mini whiteboards as they were mostly one word answers. After each question I showed the correct answer and added some commentary if needed, and students kept a tally of their score on the back of their mini whiteboard. At the end they wrote their total score on their mini whiteboard to show me. Overall they really enjoyed the quiz and I felt like it went well. It took about 40 minutes.
A Level Maths
I wish there were more A level revision resources around! We had so many for the old C1 - C4 specification but there's not quite so much available for the new specification. It doesn't help that A level resources for one exam board can't necessarily be used with another board. During the Easter holidays I'm running a 2.5 hour statistics revision session for Year 13 and I had to make the session from scratch which took ages! At least I will be able to reuse it in years to come.
One thing I made that I thought might be worth sharing is a Statistics Quiz. I plan to use this for my starter in my Easter revision session. I made a load of revision quizzes for the old A level about ten years ago but they're all out of date now. So this is basically an updated version. I also made a Pure Quiz which I might use in June as part of an exam warm up, alongside some exam style questions.
I haven't tested either of these quizzes yet so there may be errors, but feel free to borrow and adapt (the files are here), and please let me know if you spot mistakes.
Update
While you're here, a couple of quick notices:
- I still have a maths teacher position available on my lovely team. This is a fantastic opportunity to teach maths at Key Stage 3 and 4 (and A level if desired - Year 12 or 13 or both) at a really fantastic school. Our GCSE maths results are brilliant (we are a totally non-selective school and half of our students get a Grade 7+ in maths) and our students have fantastic behaviour and attitudes. If you live in South London/Surrey then please get in touch (I'm happy to discuss the role or show you round - email me at resourceaholic@gmail.com) or apply directly by 22nd April. Come and work at a school where it's an absolute pleasure to teach maths!
- I'll be at the MEI Conference this summer. It's on 3/4 July at the Keele University. If you've not been before then do ask your school if you can attend - it's fantastic CPD and if you teach exam classes then the timing works well - you might not need much cover. The MEI Conference is always incredibly high quality and is quite different to other conferences, so if you've not been before then I really recommend coming this year. Hopefully I'll see you there.
That's it from me. Enjoy the Easter break!