28th August 2024
I’ve added some data about individual grade boundary trends for each exam board to the exam papers folder (02 Grade boundaries and data / e1 Individual Board Trends)
The reason I look at “all time” highest and lowest and also for just the june series is that we tend not to stick to published grade boundaries regardless of the paper that was sat and use the highest grade boundaries for mocks which raises expectations in terms of what students need to achieve especially at the grade 4 and 5 boundaries, the effect is that students tend to work harder. There is also the argument that students find it demotivating but we decimalise the grades anyway so they see that they are making progress … its all about how you sell it to them and we have never had an issue with this but some people seem reticent about getting students to work harder for some reason!!
In addition to this, the Crossover papers for Edexcel along with worked solutions are now complete.
As always, may or may not be useful.
August 2024
You’ll see updates in the exam data folder for all the usual grade boundary analysis looking at the trends for all the boards.
When looking at the boundaries I compare june with June (and Nov with Nov) due to the issues surrounding resits and the cohorts being totally different in the Autumn series. You can see for most of the papers the grade boundaries went down or stayed the same compared with Summer 23, with the exception of AQA Higher tier and OCR Foundation tier which went up
This can be found in the grade boundary and data folder. More insights in the way next week.
Summer 2024
So far:
- Ks2 SATs papers 1 and 2 are available on the RAG functions.
- Edexcel F Paper 1 is available on the RAG function too.
- All papers have worked solutions available
6th June 2024
Breakfast worksheets for both Edexcel tiers are now available … I’ve said it before but these work really well for warming students up and calming the nerves. The topics are based on what hasn’t appeared so far that are on the easier end of the spectrum. They also have answers included so they are self checking.
5th June 2024
Student friendly markschemes for both tiers of three Bumper Practice Papers are now in the revision and exam prep folder. Note that I’ve gone with the same style of annotations that you’ll see on one of the exam board student friendly markschemes from the live sittings so the style will be familiar.
Breakfast workout sheets will be available shortly for printing
4th June 2024
The Bumper Practice Paper for Edexcels Higher tier is now in the revision and exam prep folder … markschemes for both tiers will be up shortly.
I have also used the opportunity to review the revision checklist and have updated these (found in the revision/exam prep folder under “revision lists” … going forward we’ll use these for paper 1 prep and then tick off the items on the list as they appear on papers so that students are reminded of the full coverage for the spec for all 3 papers.
Additionally I’ve added worked solutions for paper 2 (Edexcel) and also paper 1 for OCR. Paper 2 for AQA and OCR are both work in progress.
4th June 2024 (early in the morning i.e. 1:30 a.m!)
The Bumper Practice Paper for Edexcels Foundation tier is now in the revision and exam prep folder … markschemes on their way and Higher tier will be up shortly.
3rd June 2024
The list of topics that appeared on todays paper has been updated and “hit lists” for Higher and Foundation are available in the Revision & Exam Prep Folder. They’ve already been emailed out to students and parents! The response from parents is lovely … it makes them feel supported by the Maths Team when we regularly keep them updated with useful resources. Whether they use them or not … well … who knows!?!?
Additionally “practice papers” will be out shortly as will new breakfast workouts for the morning of the exam … love the fact that lots of the one marker topics we did with some of the kids this morning came up … they felt so at ease opening the paper.
Also, if you haven’t seen my latest tweet … we went out with some chunky pavement chalk and wrote messages on the floor as the students walked to their exam .. it went down a treat!
30th MAY 2024
I’ve started to put in the revision and exam prep folder worksheets for the morning of the exam on Monday (foundation p1 for Edexcel is there … others on their way!)
They worked really well with my students for paper 1 and I was pleased to see lots of the topics making an appearance … simple metric measure conversions is yet to make an appearance on Edexcel though so have included them again!
29th MAY 2024
So we’ve started to add some other stuff for those of you that do AQA … starting with Crossover Papers from this Summers papers. These show just the questions that are the common assessed items.
22nd MAY 2024
Odds & Evens Edexcel Paper 1’s from the Summer also now available in the Exam Paper folder … A reminder … these are the papers split odd and even Qs which make them suitable for future use within a lesson rather than splitting them into “down the middle” which results in an “easy” paper and a “difficult” paper.
21st MAY 2024
The Bumper Practice paper for Higher is ready to is ready and now in the “best guess” folder along with student friendly mark scheme.
I’ve also added in the Crossover Question paper from last week for Edexcel … exam papers/Summer 24 etc.
19th MAY 2024
The foundation bumper practice paper for Foundation paper 2 is now in the “best guess” folder along with student friendly mark scheme. I’ve used the Hit List to focus in on unseen topics … it was amazing having kids coming out saying that stuff that was on the first practice paper came up on the exam. Filled them with loads of confidence!
The Higher version is on its way ready to send to print to hand out to students as they come out of their English exam on Thursday! .
16th MAY 2024 *updated*
Topic List for things that came up on Foundation & Higher paper 1 for Edexcel already in the Revision Folder (New folder in there called 06a Hit Lists) and also a Hit List of topics that haven’t appeared to send to print and hand out to students for Foundation & Higher is now available.
Other boards are on their way over the weekend …
… and finally … following how well the bumper papers were recieved by students for paper 1 I’m pulling together more bumper practice papers for paper 2 shortly too and also more breakfast workout sheets (they work really well too!)
**Scurries off to pull it all together**
14th MAY 2024
Confession time … I’ve found (well Seager did!) a couple of mistakes on the MScheme for the Foundation Bumper paper and they are now corrected (I swear I’m not stupid … just rushing!) .. v3 now in the “Best Guess” Folder.
You’ll also notice when using RAG that there is a new drop down under Key Stage for Key Stage 2 which means that all the KS2 SATs papers are available as RAG papers … may be useful to generate for year 7 when they come into you especially if you get the question level data (from the students acual SATs papers) that can be downloaded by the person that does your whole school data or if you use the SATs papers as a benchmark test when they first join your school which I know lots of schools do.
12th MAY 2024
In the “breakfast workout” folder of the revision and exam prep folder you will find a worksheet that you can use as a warm up before paper 1 …. theres 1 for each paper for each exam board. They include, for foundation some common 1 or 2 markers specific to each board.
8th MAY 2024
In the “best guess” folder of the revision and exam prep folder you will find the Higher version of my “bumper” 150 mark paper for which covers loads of topics … along with student friendly markscheme. Nearly there … roll on paper 1.
5th MAY 2024
So the madness has started with students asking about what I think could come up .. they have seen “predictions” on Social Media and a couple of them only want to revise what they’ve seen on those papers … I get we want students doing some work but to limit what they work on before paper 1 is so limiting.
So I’ve put together a “bumper” 150 mark paper for Edexcel Foundation tier which covers loads of topics … in the “best guess” folder of the revision and exam prep folder along with student friendly markscheme. Higher tier is on its way along too.
29th April 2024
I’ve just added the first breakfast workout to the revision / exam prep folder for Pearsons Foundation Paper 1. I’ve used the frequency analysis to look at the high frequency one markers to pull together some warm up questions …… it’s never a good idea to attempt to teach students anything new at the last minute!
Higher and the other boards are on their way!
28th April 2024
If you haven’t seen the grade chaser worksheets do check them out … in the teacher toolkit / revision & exam prep / grade chasers. The ones for all of the foundation tier will be up by close of play (28/4/24)
I’ve been using them with my students after going through the Pearson “aiming for” papers in class – if there is a topic that I feel needs some whole class input I stop and teach, so for example last week there was a Reverse Mean question that no one could do, so I stopped and went through that and other questions (as I would a normal lesson) and covered that topic. After the lesson I’ve been emailing out the Grade Chasers to parents and students (every lesson) saying that we have gone through similar questions in class so they should know how to approach the questions BUT if all else fails they have no excuses as there are video links on the front page that links to the original solution. I then send the solutions to the previous one when I send the next one out. The feedback from students has been brilliant … a few of them commented that this is really helping them with revision and going through stuff at home having seen similar in class is helping “cement” the methods. They also like the fact that I’m able to give them the number of marks to aim towards for their specific target grade.
These have also been added to the bootcamp.
23rd April 2024
More “Tutor” (or starters? or short sessions) powerpoints added to the tutor folder in the revision and exam prep folder.
22nd April 2024
We were made aware that the the link to the “resources ordered by topic” wasn’t working and so have now put a solution in place so that the folder works and will take you to folders called “Number”, “ratio” etc …
21st April 2024
I’ve added three more grade chasers (07b, 08b and 09b) to the “Grade Chaser NEW” folder in revision/exam prep and also to week 3 and 4 of the bootcamp.
More tutor slides added to the tutor folder … to be honest these are useful as starters too.
If you have a “Lower higherw” group … you may find a worksheet useful that I’ve put in the Activities & Worksheet folder for all the statistical diagrams .. from frequency polygons right through to CF and histograms.
Finally, I’ve also put a new “first 5” for the Summer 22 paper 1 for Pearson … my year 10s are getting into these too!
15th April 2024
Another “grade chaser” (06b) has been added to the “Grade Chaser NEW” folder and also to week 3 of the bootcamp.
14th April 2024
Once again I’ve added another “first five” PPT and also added some “tutor” PPTs with solutions – all added to the relevant folder in the exam prep/revision folder.
There is also another updated “grade chaser” … this has also been added to the bootcamp.
9th April 2024
This evening I’ve added another “first five” PPT, updated some “tutor” PPTs with solutions and also added another “tutor” PPT to the relevant folders in the exam prep/revision folder.
8th April 2024
In the revision folder of the teacher toolkit you’ll see some new “tutor time” powerpoints which are a collection of questions on two slides that can be used for short sessions that you may have with students (I’ve used them in tutor time with a group of target students) … theres about 40 PPTs and I’ve started adding in solution slides too. There will be about 70 of these eventually.
Additionally, I’ve added another “grade chaser” worksheet in the Grade Chaser 2 folder which are part of suite of resources that build up in difficulty over the suite. They all come with links to solutions to help students too if they are “stuck”.
4th April 2024
In the revision folder of the teacher toolkit you’ll see some new “first five” powerpoints which show performance data to use with students over the next few weeks. I’m working backwards to produce these for all the sittings for Pearson … am also hunting down the same information for AQA and OCR to produce similar for them.
You’ll may also have noticed a new “grade chaser” folder there too. These are being updated so that there will be 2 sets of these and annually they’ll get added to. This enables us to build up more resources for the bootcamp – you’ll see that in week 1 for the bootcamp these resources are available as an “or” option for students to complete but they are ace and it seemed a shame to have them solely for the bootcamp. I used the first set with my year 11 groups from September as homework and because the difficulty increased over time it helped build confidence initially. Whats really useful with these is that the front page includes links to clips showing students how the original question that the grade chaser question is based on so there is no excuse about “I couldn’t do it!” … watch the flipping video!
Thinking towards the exams which are looming … breakfast workouts for paper 1 will be available soon, as will some “Mish Mash” sheets with a mixture of topics … all tailored and based on the frequency analysis.
We’re also looking for a couple of schools to trial our new learner management system (well thats the posh word for it) … its the ability to be able to set questions, attach worksheets and also set videos for students to watch (you can actually see how much of the video they’ve watched too!) all built around the crossover topics so very much intervention focussed … if you’re interested drop us an email to support@justmaths.co.uk
28th Feb 2024
I’ve just finalised the RAG function for Higher paper 3 which means that ALL papers for the November series for Edexcel are now available.
25th Feb 2024
I’ve added the worked solutions for the November 23 papers to the exam paper folder.
The benefit of doing all the papers for all the boards is that you get a flavour of the quirks of different boards’ papers but also come across some lovely questions (occasionally!) … there is lovely two way table on these papers (Higher paper 1 Q18) which whilst its quite late in the papers will provide a nice challenging question for foundation students too in the lead up to the summer exams.
NOV 23 Edexcel Higher paper 2 on our RAG function is now available … Just paper 3 to upload … will be done shortly …
22nd Feb 2024
Our RAG function for the Edexcel Higher paper 1 is now available for the Nov 23 papers. Paper 2 and 3 will be uploaded shortly …
20th Feb 2024
I’ve collated a selection of exam questions for density / mass and volume. I’ve built in some progression to the questions so that they start with calculating simple density, mass or volume and then build up to combining liquids etc. I always lay these out like a two way table but always emphasise the point that for compound measures which have two “things” in their units we can’t just add the different columns like we would for mass or volume (single “thing” in their units) …. oh I miss teaching dimensional analysis!
As always, may or may not be useful. They’re in the teacher toolkit (Teaching resources / crossover / compound measures)
18th Feb 2024
RAG paper for Edexcels foundation paper 3 is now available. The higher papers will be up later this week.
5th Feb 2024
You’ll notice a new folder has appeared in the teacher toolkit … Resources (sorted by topic). I’ve found that whilst some of you don’t follow the SOW you still want to use the resources and so I’ve started a new
You’ll notice a new folder has appeared in the teacher toolkit … Resources (sorted by topic). I’ve found that whilst some of you don’t follow the SOW you still want to use the resources and so I’ve started a new area, which has the same resources but organised by “topic area” making it easier to find stuff. Nothing else has changed other than I now need to remember to put stuff in two places! Oh Joy!
Maybe I should have thought that through. Honestly … it’ll be fine!
NOTE THAT YOU MAY HAVE TO CLEAR YOUR CACHE IF THE FOLDER IS APPEARING EMPTY TO YOU … IF THAT DOESNT WORK SPEAK TO YOUR ICT GUYS.
21st Jan 2024
RAG paper for Edexcels foundation paper 2 is now available. The rest are on the way!
15th Jan 2024
The grade boundary document has been updated for all boards to include the Nov 23 papers – this also includes the “notional” grade boundaries for each seperate paper. In addition in the other folders of the exam paper / grade boundaries & data folder you’ll find that I’ve included some cross board analysis and also trends for each board.
Jan 2024
November paper 1 (foundation) for Edexcel is now available on our RAG system. The other 5 papers are work in progress.
17th December 2023
In the “Other Resources / Quiz” folder you will find my updated annual Christmas pub quiz.
I’ve also added an “althrough” worksheet for transformations in 05 Transformations of the Working Above teaching resources (e3/e4) which has one question for each required skill … ie doing, describing for all the transformations up to negative and fractional SF’s, and some combined transformations . A “Crossover” version of this (i.e. the first 16 questions + some foundation only questions at the start) has also been put in the Revision Worksheet folder.
11th December 2023
In the Exam Papers / Grade Boundaries & Data/ Crossover Analysis you’ll find the bi-annual (i.e. following each exam series) comparison of the “common assessed items” that appeared on each boards papers that season. This is not to say that only these percentages are considered “Crossover” topics … in fact many crossover topics appear on the papers but may not be common assessed items (i,e, they appear on both papers). For more recent recruits to teaching, a quick reminder that it is these common assessed items that the exam boards use to ensure that grades 4 and 5 are comparable regardless of which tier of entry. Check out “chained equipercentile equating” … there is a great blog post on Ofquals site that explains this in great nerdy detail!
I have included the data for Eduqas this time and have added it to my “to do” to go back and look at previous sittings as I know many of you use this as your exam board of choice.
6th December 2023
In the November 23 exam paper folder you’ll find the QLA for the Edexcel exam papers. I’ve added a new feature that will print off a complete class set (+ more) … and don’t forget there is also the blank version if you want to print 0f and get studets to complete themselves … for more info on how to use these … please read the “READ ME” tab on the workbook.
I’ve also added this feature to the Summer 22 papers and Summer 23 papers too (these are in the relevant folder)
21st November 2023
I’ve just added the checkin (and solutions) for Unit 46, 47, 48 – Circles, Arcs & Sectors of the Crossover SOW. Can be found in teaching resources / crossover / 46 47 Circles.
13th November 2023
Paper 3 took place today and so I’ve updated the crossover analysis and as you can see just over 32% of both tiers were common assessed items.
I’ve also updated the frequency analysis with the topics that came up on paper 3 so you can look at the high frequency topics to prepare for the summer exams.
You’ll find both workbooks in the grade boundary and data folder of the exam papers folder.
As always, may or may not be useful.
10th November 2023
Paper 2 took place today and so I’ve been busy … I’ve updated the frequency analysis with the topics that came up on paper 2 so you can have a look at WHAT HASN’T COME UP YET. One way to do this is to filter out the questions that came up on paper 1 and paper 2 … you could do what I did and then filtered the “appearances” to look at topics that have come up in more than 7 sittings … and then see whats left … these may be a good place to start for a paper 3 hit list.
Also updated the crossover analysis that showed that 31.% of the marks were common assessed items that appeared on both tiers of entry.
This data and information can be found in the “Grade Boundaries and Data” folder (in Exam Papers)
8th November 2023
So today was the first paper in the November resit series. The Edexcel papers seem to be fair and accessible. I’ve updated the frequency analysis with the topics that came up on paper 1 so you can have a look at WHAT HASN’T COME UP YET and also the crossover analysis that showed that 32.5% of the marks were common assessed items that appeared on both tiers of entry.
This data and information can be found in the “Grade Boundaries and Data” folder (in Exam Papers)
More to come shortly.
4th November 2023
Rag papers for ALL of Edexcels papers from Summer 2023 are now available …
30th Oct 2023
Rag papers for Edexcels Higher Paper 1 from Summer 2023 are now available … the rest of the higher papers are on the way! Remember these are alternative questions with video support on the front page and worked solutions.
22nd Oct 2023
I’ve been cutting past papers into two for a while now either for homework, revision sessions or for doing in class when we need to do them over two lessons and have been splitting them into “odds and even questions” rather than just the front half and the back half where studemts find the front easy and expect the second half to be tough … so I’ve done the same for Edexcels Summer 23 papers (and also added the ones from Nov 21) to the relevant exam paper folder ..
May or may not be of use.
18th Oct 2023
Anyone that knows me will know I love a spreadsheet. So I have been looking at the performance tables data and came across some transition from KS2 to KS4 data, from which I’ve extracted the maths data and pulled it together for the different sub categories. You will find this in the Exam papers / Grade boundary & data / F1 KS2 to KS4 data folder as I suspect this is something that will be available every year (provided the students sat KS2 SATs that year)
18th Oct 2023
Ive added some analysis to the exam paper / crossover papers folder for Summer 22 and Summer 23 that shows the performance of the average Grade 3, 4 and 5 student on each of the common assessed items (i.e. the crossover questions) which may be useful when making your tiering decisions if you use these papers for your mocks … draw your own conclusion but definitely interesting reading.
16th Oct 2023
Rag papers for Edexcels Foundation Paper 3 from Summer 2023 are now available … higher papers are on the way! Remember these are alternative questions with video support on the front page and worked solutions.
11th Oct 2023
The 3rd in the first set of “First 5” powerpoint is now done for the Summer 23 series … useful for reinforcing the message that the first five questions are cruical. You will find these in the “Revision and exam prep folder”.
10th Oct 2023
Rag papers for Edexcels Foundation Paper 2 from Summer 2023 are now available … more on the way! Remember these are alternative questions with video support on the front page and worked solutions.
6th Oct 2023
Rag papers for Edexcels Foundation Paper 1 from Summer 2023 are now available. The other papers will be available shortly.
2nd Oct 2023
Occasionally when Seager and I have a conversation, something he says just makes sense.
So we did a “thing” today and he was talking about “The First 5” and showing students the performance on these questions and I loved the idea. So in the revision and exam prep folder, you will find a folder called “The First 5” which has the first five questions for each paper on one slide along with the mean %.
The plan is to work backwards from Summer 23 so worth checking in … I will of course also add them here as they get updated too.
Finally it seems that we have had some gremlins on the server and have had to rewind the settings, which means that my last post about KS2 OR KS4? Looking at the SATS papers has gone missing … check out the grade boundary & data folder / Paper Analysis & Data / KS2 or KS4 .. may be useful when considering your year 7 SOW.
17th Sept 2023
Part 2 of the deep dive into Edexcels summer papers is now available – this time looking at Higher paper 1. It can be found n the grade boundary and data folder where you will find a folder called “paper analysis & CPD”
8th Sept 2023
A couple of years ago I did a proper deep dive into the performance of the questions on each paper and shared the slides … I am doing the same over the next few weeks. In the grade boundary and data folder you will find a folder called “paper analysis & CPD” where there is a powerpoint (there will be 6 eventually!) that looks at a small number of notable questions from Edexcels Foundation paper 1. Its really useful as a discussion document to discuss why certain questions performed the way they did and what can be done about it (if anything!)
May or may not be useful.
31st August
I’m excited about this one … you will find in the grade boundary and data folder an improved frequency analysis spreadsheet for all the Edexcel sittings … there are 3 sheets: 1 that includes all the data and then one each for higher and foundation.
When looking at the higher or foundation sheets you can then order by “Total appearances”, “Total Marks” or “Marks per Appearance” … its up to you! These things are always subjective and you will see that where there are mixed topics I’ve added these as seperate categories rather than me making the decision about allocating to a specific topic.
29th August
All the summer papers now have worked solutions too. If you haven’t checked out the exam paper folder I’ve put a “trial” for some student friendly markschemes in there for the Edexcel papers and if you like them I’ll carry on doing them for future series.
24th August
I’ve updated the grade boundary tracker sheet, and also the trends documents for all four boards that show the grade boundaries over time … and also produced some data that compares Summer 23 with Summer 22 and also Summer 2019.
Have a look in the exam paper folder – grade boundaries and data …. EDIT: Just to add that OCR’s higher paper 1 had 1 mark added to every students score to make up for a duff question … check out the markscheme for question 13. Which goes to prove how important it is that you check the MS when marking mocks etc no matter how experienced you are at marking!)
30th July
Our new tab now has resources added for week 3 … have a look! No … dont!!! Leave it till the end of the holidays to have a look.
28th July
When you log in you may notice a new menu item at the top of the screen …. have a little nosey (its still a work in progress) … but week 1 and week 2 are sorted. More on its way shortly.
19th July
We’ve updated the student checklist for the Crossover (in the teacher toolkit, teaching resources, Crossover, Student checklists) so that there are links that open the lesson videos for each topic.
19th June Update
So I’ve added Question level analysis spreadsheets for the Edexcel papers ready for next year. They are in the same format that the our RAG function will use when the RAG papers are ready – we’re working away in the backgroup getting them ready too. There is also a manual version that can be printed off for the students to fill in themselves.
In addition I’ve some some analysis looking at the percentage of questions that are included in the common assessed items (i.e. that are on both Higher and Foundation tiers) … this can be found in the Exam Paper / Grade Boundary & Data Folder.
What is interesting is that the common items for Edexcel have generally been the end of the F tier and start of the H tier (with the exception of the last question or two on Foundation) and previously AQAs common items were scattered throughout the papers and generally not in a sequential run but they are now much more in line with Edexcels papers in terms of their placement. Due to the nature of OCR papers being out of 100 (and not 80) comparing percentages is difficult but the number of marks that are common is similar to AQAs papers.
Additionally you will find these questions for Edexcel collated as “Crossover” papers in the exam paper folder.
Remember “the Crossover” does not mean “Common Assessed Items” … the topics we have collated in the teacher toolkit as the “Crossover” include the standard text and underlined text in the GCSE subject content document that all students need to be confident with.
Breakfast Workout for Edexcel Higher Paper 1
Both Higher and Foundation now available in the Exam Prep folder.
Hit Lists
The hit lists for Edexcel paper 3 of topics that haven’t appeared are now available. I’ve placed them in the “Exams / Summer 23 / Topic & Hit List” folder and also in the “Best Guess” folder in the Revision/Exam Prep folder for Summer 23 to support the bumper practice papers (which can now be found in the “Best guess folder”… both tiers are there!) .
I have also added the first of the breakfast workout sheets ready for the morning of paper 3 (revision and exam prep folder) … the Higher one is on its way!
Topic Lists
The lists of topics that came up on paper 1 has been updated to include paper 2 following this mornings paper. I have already sent out to parents/students as a holding email so that students don’t focus on these topics (I am not saying not to revise them!) and also saying that a “Hit List” and bumper practice paper will be out shortly (will update here later this evening!).
I have placed the updated lists in the Exam paper folder / Summer 23 / Topic List and Hit List Folder.
Breakfast worksheets.
May or may not be useful for those last minute sessions or for the morning of the exam when you dont want to stress students out but do want them to do some maths. In the revision and exam prep folder … for Edexcel Higher and Foundation.
Mish Mash 2 Higher version
In the revision folder I’ve put in the Higher Worksheet (4 sides) of a mish mash of topics that didn’t appear on paper 1 which you may find useful for revision or those lessons in between exams for those students doing Edexcel Higher.
Mish Mash
In the revision folder I’ve put in a Foundation Worksheet (4 sides) which are a mish mash of topics that didn’t appear on paper 1 which you may find useful for revision or those lessons in between exams.
Having looked at the questions I put on the first one of the these (for paper 1) and the actual questions that came up I’m pretty pleased with the topics we chose based on our frequency analysis … the first question was a decimal to % conversion!
Bumper practice papers
In the revision and exam prep folder (under Best Guess … I know! I’ve changed my view on calling them best guess as I think its limiting students and gives them the impression that only stuff on those papers can appear and thats just flipping dangerous!) you will find a bumper practice paper for topics that haven’t appeared for the higher tier (foundation versions are also now available) .. along with a copy of the hit lists for students / parents. In addition to this I’d remind you about the “take 5″s which are short collections of targeted exam questions which you may find useful for revision sessions.
In addition, I’ll be pulling together breakfast workouts and “mish mash” worksheets for use over the next couple of weeks too in the next couple of days.
Paper 1 done
As part of pulling together some bumper practice papers etc, I’ve put a list of topics together that came up on Edexcels paper 1 that you may want to send out as a holding point to students to say these came up and not to focus on them (thats not to say they will not appear on P2 or P3 but, lets be honest its less likely for some “standalone” topics. )
You can find these and HIT LISTS of topics that did not come up in paper 1 in the teachertoolkit / exam papers / a Summer 2023 which I have already emailed out to students and parents (the feedback is ace!)
Will be back later with an update on practice papers etc.
17th May 2023 – Paper 1 Prep
To prepare for Edexcels foundation paper 1 I’ve put together 4 sheets that work really well printed on A3 (back to back) which comprises of high frequency 1 and 2 mark (AO1 i.e. Using and Applying style) questions that may be useful for last minute revision sessions. I’ll be doing the same for paper 2 and paper 3 when we know what hasn’t appeared on paper 1. These can be found in 07 Revision / Exam prep … then 05 Breakfast and Last Minute Sessions folder.
In addition I will be pulling together my usual “bumper practice” papers to prepare for P2 and P3 too.
24th April 23.
In the exam paper folder, you’ll notice there is now a folder for GCSE Stats – I’ve added in Solutions for the Summer 2019 papers. More on the way!
April 23.
I’ve added a new set of exam questions for real life graphs in the teaching resource folder. I have also previously added more resources (but forgot to add them here!).
5th March
November 22 Higher Paper 3 for Edexcel is now available on the RAG function.
2nd March
The first of the “Breakfast” workouts for the Summer 23 exams (for Edexcel paper 1) have been made available in the revision and exam prep folder – ideal for the morning of the exam or for a revision session just prior to the exams. They are self checking in that the answers are down the side of the sheet so that students can fold them under the sheet and then check their own answers.
The content is based on the frequency analysis and so paper 2 and paper 3 sheets will be made available after each previous exam takes place so that its relevant and doesn’t include content that has already been examined.
The same sheets will be made available for AQA and OCR (again based on frequency analysis)
26th Feb
I’ve just added the first 3 tutor time activities – they are all going to be logic style puzzles complete with answers. May or may not be useful!
26th Feb
November 2 Higher Paper 1 for Edexcel is now available on the RAG function.
23rd Feb
November 22 Foundation Paper 3 for Edexcel is now available on the RAG function. Higher papers are on their way!
PS: yep! still half term here!
17th Feb
November 22 Foundation Paper 2 for Edexcel is now available on the RAG function. The rest are on their way!
PS: Happy Half Term! Or if you’re back … hope you had a lovely break!
10th Feb
You may have noticed that there are now worked solutions for all the boards for the Nov papers, along with QLA workbooks for the papers too to generate student specific sheets showing their strengths and weaknesses.
In these days where budgets are getting tighter I’ve also added in my printer friendly versions of the Edexcel papers for the last 4 sessions where I’ve stripped out the gaps and reduced the numbers of pages that these print on (every little helps!!)
I’ve also added in the revision folder some worksheets that are based on a small number of topics which may be useful for revision. There are currently 3 of these covering data diagrams, graphs and transformations – basically the stuff that requires graphs / diagrams and for which printing cannot be avoided.
30th Jan
Just added the maths calendar for Feb along with the solutions for Jan.
12th Jan
Today saw the publication of the resit results from Nov 22, so I have updated the grade boundary history document, and I have also included in the grade boundary and data folder (individual board trends) a document that compares the boundaries for all the previous November sittings by board.
Jan 23 – RAG paper for November 2022 Edexcel Foundation paper 1
RAG papers can now be generated for the November foundation paper 1. Other papers are on their way!
16th October – New CheckIns and CheckOuts for Parallel Lines and Interior/Exterior Angles
New CheckIns and CheckOuts for the Pythagoras and Trigonometry units along with solutions are now included in the teacher toolkit (teaching resources). Combined CheckIns and CheckOuts are also included for units 39-45. We have been using these as paper homeworks (revisiting units after having previously taught them several weeks previously) – which in addition to the Bread and Butter startes provide ample opportunities to revisit previous work.
11th October – New CheckOuts for Parallel Lines and Interior/Exterior Angles
New CheckOut for Units 35 and 36 along with solutions are now included in the teacher toolkit (teaching resources)
10th October – New CheckOut Bearings
New CheckOut for Unit 38 Bearings along with solutions are now included in the teacher toolkit (teaching resources) … more on the way!
6th October – AQA Worked Solutions June 22
Worked solutions for the Summer 22 papers are now available.
4th October – Crossover Bread and Butter Solutions
Solutions for the first 10 weeks are now also available. Note that whilst doing these I have noticed a couple of things that made the questions too difficult for H/F so they have been adjusted.
Worked solutions for the Summer 22 Equqas papers are also available. We find these are invaluable exam practice regardless of your exam board of choice especially for the Higher tier to push students on a bit.
30th Sept 22 – Pearson Edexcel Frequency Analysis
In the Exam Paper/ Grade boundary & Data folder of the teacher toolkit you will find an updated excel spreadsheet for the high frequency topics for higher and foundation. I’ve left the “raw data” there too as a seperate tab so you can cut and dice the data in a different way if you wish.
29th Sept 22 – Bread and Butter Starters
I have updated the bread and butter folder for 2022 – 23 for the Crossover. Because of the publication of the Advanced Information last year certain topics were not interleaved as they weren’t on the AI (for Pearson) so for the first 16 weeks they are the same as last year and I will get the remaining 20 weeks updated before Christmas so that they are “set in stone” for intervention with year 11 to provide a complete years worth of starters – this also means that I can get the solutions for them done too as they wont need to change going forward. This will free up some time to get more checkin/checkouts done too … theres more of them on their way shortly.
Sept 22 – Data
I’ve added some comparisons in relation to the summer 22 grade boundaries across all the boards.
This has been put in the teacher toolkit / 06 exam papers/ 02 Grade boundaries and data / d1. Grade boundary board comparisons
2nd August 2022 – RAG Higher paper 3
RAG papers are available for Edexcels Summer 22 Higher paper 3 … I know! I know! Paper 2 should have been the next one … not sure what I was thinking! Paper 2 is on it’s way then we are done!
16th July 2022 – RAG Higher paper 1
RAG papers are available for Edexcels Summer 22 Higher paper 1 … the remaining higher papers are on their way!
27th June 2022 – Advance Information AGAIN!
The AI for November resits has been published today. I am putting together student friendly versions and they will be in the “exam paper” folder. For those of you that usually have entries in November make a note in your planner to print off copies for results day. Also worth emailing to students / parents once its known that they will have an exam in the Autumn term.
26th June 2022 – RAG Foundation paper 3
RAG papers are available for Edexcels Summer 22 Foundation paper 3 … the higher papers will be available shortly after the full markschemes are available so that we can be sure of where marks were allocated in the formal exams.
20th June 2022 – Combined Bread & Butter Starters Part 1
We’ve had a number of requests to combined the bread and butter starters so that they can be printed as booklets … so I’ve started to collate them. The plan is to focus initially on the “crossover” and getting a full 39 weeks done on the basis of a “normal” year (this years from Feb onwards focused on the Advance Information so a number of weeks need reviewing for next year) and then move onto getting a full years worth of “Working Towards” and “Working Above”.
You will find the first batch (weeks 1 to 6) in the Starters folder.
18th June 2022 – RAG Foundation paper 2
RAG papers are available for Edexcels Summer 22 Foundation paper 2..
9th June 2022 – Breakfast workouts
The breakfast workouts for OCR are now available.
9th June 2022 – AQA Paper 3 breakfast workout
The breakfast workouts for AQA are now available (OCR is on its way … I’ve not quite finished and its late!)
In addition we’ve already made available Edexcel Foundation Paper 1 from this Summers papers on the RAG function so that if you use the papers for mocks etc remedial papers can be generated. We’re working hard on getting the other papers done too … we are unlikely to release the Higher papers until after the markschemes are made available as we like to use them identify where marks have been awarded for the higher papers. In previous years we’ve always kept the RAG function to use just in year 11 but last Summer we generated papers following the end of year 10 exams and sent them to students / parents and it worked really well … so we’ll be doing the same again this summer. It also means that we get email lists set up to send group emails with the final countdown etc ready for year 11.
7th June 2022 – Paper 3 prep
The breakfast workouts for Edexcel (other boards will be done tomorrow) in readiness for Mondays final paper have been uploaded and I’ve also added 4 “mishmash” worksheets based on the AI for Edexcels paper which may be useful this week too (Solutions on their way!) and a change from “death by past paper” sessions. There are 2 for each tier of entry.
Breakfast workouts can be found in 07 Revision etc / 05 Breakfast Workouts and the Mish Mash sheets 07 Revision etc / 04b Mish Mash
As always … may or may not be useful.
6th June 2022 – Video Lessons & Quick Vids
This weekend marked a milestone and the end of a major project that Seagers been working on. All the lesson videos for the Crossover have finally been redone and each topic/unit (apart from 2 where it didn’t suit) now also have a collection of “Quick vids” breaking down each key skill into shorter videos below them. Each main video comes with a “lesson worksheet” and solutions which are also under the main vid (and in the teacher toolkit) …. with the idea that the students can work along the video making their own notes too. This has been a mammoth task getting done which we needed to do before starting the next “thing”!
To support this I have also collated the worksheets so that they can be given to students as a “batch”. These are found at the top of the teaching resources for the “Crossover” . Solutions are also available for these.
2nd June 2022 -Breakfast Workouts for all boards
Paper 2 workout sheets based on the Advance Information are in the 07 Revision & exam prep/ 05 Breakfast workouts / 02 – 2022 Paper 2 all boards. A reminder that they generally include AO1 (using and applying) style questions because the last thing you want to be doing on the morning of the exam is stressing students out with the idea that they can’t answer a question – the idea is that we build confidence during the session.
30th May 2022 – Prep for paper 2 and paper 3 updated …
Further to the below there are TWO “Mish Mash” worksheets for Edexcel paper 2 Higher now in the folder mentioned below. Used the first lot with our groups last week and they were well received … I think they are a bit “exam paper’d out” and so this just mixes it up a bit (they are all still exam questions!)
Paper 3s and breakfast worksheets are on their way.
23rd May 2022 – Prep for paper 2 and paper 3
Thinking about what to do for paper 2 … I’ve put together the first “Mish Mash” (I couldn’t think of another name but seems apt as there is a real “Mish Mash” of topics all mixed up) for Edexcel Foundation paper 2 which has one question for each topic …. there will probably be 2 of these per paper to include most of the topics on the AI. The intention is that this week there will be at least one sheet done for paper 2 for Edexcel with the rest and sheets for paper 3 being available for the return to school after half term. (We may use them for revision sessions over the break too!)
I’ve put the first one in 07 Revision& exam prep / 4b Summer 22 P2 and P3
As always, may or may not be useful.
22nd May 2022 – Worked Solutions P1 & AI Comparison Information
I have uploaded worked solutions for Edexcels paper 1 (other papers and boards will be added on an ongoing basis)
In addition I have included in the exam paper folder (Summer 2022) some analysis about the AI information and what question each topic appeared under for Edexcel and AQA’s paper 1’s (again its an ongoing project) but overall I think the Advance information was useful.
Thinking towards paper 2 and paper 3, there will be a holiday homework for Pearson (H&F) and also some material (probably 2 small papers with 1 question of each topic) aimed specifically at the topics on the AI to use in revision sessions … watch this space.
15/16th May 2022
I have uploaded the markschemes for the Eduqas November Papers and Worked Solutions for all the papers .. even if you don’t use Eduqas (for use in England) they are still a good source of questions particularly for challenging your higher attaining students so well worth a look!
Higher tier breakfast workouts FOR ALL BOARDS (i.e. specific to their advance information) have been added to the revision / exam prep folder. They only include AO1 (using and applying) style questions because the last thing you want to be doing on the morning of the exam is stressing students out with the idea that they can’t answer a question – the idea is that we build confidence during the session.
The same style worksheets will be available over the half term break for paper 2 and paper 3.
14th May 2022
Breakfast workouts for Foundation paper 1 (one for each board based on the advanced information) complete with an answer “strip” so students can quickly check their answers (fold over the strip so they don’t just copy of course) are now available. They are in the revision / exam prep folder. (Higher workouts are on their way!)
10th May 2022
Combined Markschemes for the HIGHER Take 5s have been uploaded for those of you that want to share with students
9th May 2022
Combined Markschemes for the Foundation Take 5s have been uploaded for those of you that want to share with students – our plan is to email them to parents/students between P1 and P2 and then P2 and P3 .
Higher will be available tomorrow.
25th April 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today. Higher tier is finished and combined documents for all 3 Higher papers are available :
- Foundation tier: Compound units, Percentage to fractions and One Quantity as a Percentage of Another
Paper 3 will be finished today and the the combined worksheets will be uploaded later.
UPDATE: Combined worksheets for all papers are now available. I am also in the process of adding the separate worksheets to the relevant topic folders in either Working Towards, Crossover and Working Above for use going forward rather than them being hidden away just for 2022 (so you may see them in two places)!
24th April 2022
The more eagle eyed of you have already noticed something I’ve snuck into the teacher toolkit. I’ve looked at the key stage 1 to 4 programmes of study and also the GCSE subject content and attempted to map it out over the 11 year journey. You will find the excel worksheet and also the PDF that shows years 1 to 6 followed by the objectives from KS3, KS4 and I then added in the GCSE subject content because basically the GCSE subject content is an amalgamation of KS3 and KS4 in the main (all DFE docs can be found in the same folder too) …. You can find this in the teacher toolkit / 05 Schemes of Work / 07 Exam Specs, DFE etc (new docs are called F1 Year 1 to Year 11 Mapping) .
There are some discrepancies such as at KS3 … It states “expand products of two or more binomials” but at GCSE (but interestingly the KS4 content isn’t as explicit .. the subject content states “expanding products or two or more binomials” whereby the “or more” is bold text which means that its higher tier only. Weird.
As usual, may or may not be useful.
3rd April 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Number machines, Scale drawing, Depreciation, Currency Conversion and Transformations
The combined worksheets for Foundation Paper 2 are also available (Paper 3 is on its way).
Additionally a “holiday homework” for Working Above has been added to the “other resources” folder. We’ve also included Foundation & Crossover and Crossover & Working Above worksheets as combined documents if you wanted to print them back to back (A3 works really well … we all know how much students love oversized paper!)
31st March 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Triangle Properties, Quadrilaterals, Polygons, Circles, Parallel & Perpendicular Lines
The combined worksheets for Foundation Paper 2 will be available this weekend (Paper 3 is on its way). Higher worksheets are trickling in too.
29th March 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Area of a Rectangle, Area of a Triangle and Area of a Trapezium
In addition a couple of new resources have been added to 65 Real Life Graphs (a CheckOut, a Back to the Future and a Take 5 style Wsheet). I know its not on the AI list but I’m working on refreshing all the topic resources as we update the videos and add Quick Vids for the Crossover.
28th March 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Laws of Indices, Linear Simultaneous Equations, Coordinates, Straight Line Graphs, Decimals to Percentages, Profit, Angles in a Triangle and Vertically Opposite Angles.
In addition a “CheckIn” (and solutions) for 66/67 Congruence and Similar Shapes has been added to the teaching resources folder for this topic in the Crossover. This is to support the new video lesson and quick videos that are now available for Congruence.
27th March 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Frequency Tables, Probability Tree diagrams and combined events, Comparisons of Distributions and Frequency Polygons
20th March 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Rounding, Error Intervals, Expanding brackets, Factorising, Changing the subject, Reverse %ages and averages
We have also reviewed the “final countdown” documents and crossed out any topics on the front pages that are not on the AI list.
16th March 2022
Combined Take 5’s for paper 1 foundation (Edexcel) is now completed and available in the 07. Revision/ Exam Prep / 04 Take 5. The rest of the Take 5s are on their way!
QLAs available for the adapted Nov 21 papers that only include questions on the Advance information.
Happy weekend!
16th March 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Quadratic graphs, linear sequences, Percentage of an Amount, Percentage Increase / Decrease, Reverse Percentages, Speed and Density
This means that foundation paper 1 for Pearson is now complete and I’ll be combining these into one document to hand out to students / email out to parents too over the weekend. We are aiming to get F paper 2 finished next week shortly followed by paper 3.
14th March 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Write as a ratio (inc 1:n), Share in a ratio, Use ratio, Direct Proportion, Probability Scale and Probability
6th March 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Quadratic equations, Conversions (Mass, time, area and length), Reflections, Plans & elevations, Volume of a cube, Volume of a cylinder, Frequency Trees, Pictograms, Bar Charts, Two Way Tables and Stem and Leaf diagrams.
4th March 2022
Further to the adapted Nov 21 papers mentioned below – I have added some student “advanced information” sheets specifically for those papers (see note below on 27th Feb) so that students can use them in the same way that the ones for the formal exams are to be used by students.
Additionally, Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Higher tier: From my fab colleagues: Write as a Ratio, Share in a Ratio and Write in the form 1:n
Additionally, I have been contacted (*waves*) and asked if I had a version of the Advanced Info (AI) list for Pearson that included reference to the Ready? Set? Go! Crossover Revision Guides … (www.justaroo.co.uk) and so I’ve added an extra tab in the “Student friendly” version of the AI spreadsheet that includes this information. You’ll find this in 06 Exam Papers/ 01 GCSE 9-1 Paper / 0 Advance Information
28th Feb 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Estimation, Substitution and Simplification
- Higher tier: From my fab colleagues: Area of a sector, Density and Angles in a Polygon
27th Feb 2022
Following the publication of the advanced information deciding which papers to use for a final mock or as “prep” between the papers is difficult as past papers will include topics that don’t appear on “the list”. Most people will use the most recent papers as their final mock so we’ve taken the Pearson/Edexcel November 2021 papers and removed any topics that are not on the list and replaced them with questions for topics that are (on the list).
To do this and maintain “some” of the integrity of the grade boundaries we haven’t moved questions between papers; so, if for example Topic A was on the advanced information for paper 2 but appeared on paper 1 in November we have left it on paper 1.
There are some health warnings: no one knows (and if they do they shouldn’t be sharing that information as it means they are part of the examination team!) how a specific topic will be examined and so we should be wary of anyone claiming that they do. Additionally not all topics on the “list” have been included as papers would be bigger than 80 marks to cover all of them!
As there are still lots of questions about how we can interpret each of the descriptors on the list which we wont really know until after paper 1 we will still be producing “between paper” practice papers i.e. between paper 1 and 2 and between 2 and 3 to use with students to give them some more focussed practice.
As always, may or may not be of use.
You will find these in:
06 Exam Papers / 01 GCSE 9-1 / a 2021 November / a4 Edexcel – ADAPTED re Advance Information
16th Feb 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today for Higher tier: Equation of tangent to a circle, Gradients of Parallel and Perpendicular Lines, Equations of Proportion
15th Feb 2022 (ongoing thanks to my colleagues: Darbo (Mike Darby) and Matt Man
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Use of Calculator
- Higher tier: From my fab colleagues: Bounds, Use of Calculator, Expansion of Bracket and Algebraic Fractions
14th Feb 2022
Take 5’s for the below have been uploaded today:
- Foundation tier: Linear Inequalities
- Higher tier: Some of my fab colleagues (**Waves at Mr Man and Darbo … Mr Man doesn’t have a nickname yet) have started to put these together and so I’ve added another folder for this tier of entry and this evening added Quadratic equations, Factorisation, Negative & Fractional Indices, Simplification of Surds and Cumulative Frequency Graphs.
13th Feb 2022
Below you will see the progress in pulling together some “Take 5” worksheets for the Edexcel Foundation tier .. i.e. 5 questions (occasionally 3 or sometimes 10!) for each of the topics on the advance information. I have tried to show these in order of relative difficulty so they should be accessible for all students … 15 done … in terms of going forward I will prioritise paper 1 but because some topics appear twice they may be useful for other papers too. They are in the revision / exam prep folder.
As always, may or may not be useful
10th Feb 2022
I have added three more “take 5” … with 5 questions for Fraction Arithmetic, Fraction of an amount and Recurring Decimals …. this time for the Higher tier (these are based on the Pearson list) but please do bear in mind there is no guarantee that these are standalone topics or that they will be examined in this way but some practice is better than none! They can be found in the revision and exam prep folder. I suspect I am going to be repeating that disclaimer lots!!
I used the “Money” one in revision this week and it worked really well. Lots of misconceptions addressed.
8th Feb 2022
Further to the below I have added two more “take 5” … with 5 questions for Negative numbers and Four operations …. (these are based on the Pearson list) but please do bear in mind there is no guarantee that these are standalone topics or that they will be examined in this way but some practice is better than none! They can be found in the revision and exam prep folder.
7th Feb 2022
Following the publication of the advance information you can find some useful documents in the exam paper paper folder (9-1) / 2022 support / Advance information which will include student friendly versions of the information and also the excel version that you can adapt yourselves if you wish.
I have also added a new folder to the “revision & exam prep” folder called “Take 5” where I’m looking to collate 5 questions for each of the topics on the advance information – remember there is no way of knowing the way a topic could appear in the exams. All we can do now is prepare them well.
6th February 2022
RAG paper for November 21 Edexcel Higher Paper 3 is now available for use following mocks etc – which means ALL the papers are now available. The video solutions to the original paper have also been added to the video solution page (password protected so you can release these to students if and when you want to )
31st January 2022
We are due to see the advance information on or before the 7th Feb, so in order to try to pre-empt a flurry of unsustainable workload (i.e. before you all go off and start pulling stuff together and us all potentially duplicating work) just to give you the heads up that (depending on how useful the information is) we have a plan! Initially we may have to format the information into something that is more user friendly and then I’ll be pulling together exam questions for each topic (if we don’t already have them!) based on specific topics and to also adapt the “final countdown” docs to indicate topics that are not on “THE LIST”.
PS: If you haven’t seen the final countdown do check them out … we are emailing out to parents and students every week and so far the response from parents has been fab!
29th January 2022
RAG paper for November 21 Edexcel Higher Paper 2 is now available for use following mocks etc – which means all the foundation papers are now available. The last paper in this series is on it way and I will update this accordingly. The video solutions to the original paper have also been added to the video solution page (password protected so you can release these to students if and when you want to )
23rd Jan 22
The use of formula sheets will be new to lots of students and expecting them to know what to do on the day of the exam without having seen them before is a plan for disaster. We didn’t use them for the first set of mocks as the exam board versions weren’t available and now that they are we will be using them in the next mocks … but not before we get students to use them in class a bit. Those of you that have seen them will know that there is some controversy over the use of the compound interest and probability information on them. So … I’ve put together some slides called “tick and trash” showing which parts they can use as given on the sheet and others to only use when all else has failed and they cant remember the methods shown in class. If you want to use these slides you can off course adapt according to your own cohort and to the right of each slide I’ve left arrows and bins (it’ll make sense if you open the PPTs) so that you can adapt accordingly.
In addition I’ve pulled some questions together from the old spec that can be used to apply each of the areas on the formula sheet.
As always …. may or may not be useful. You can find these in the Exam Papers folder / 01 GCSE 9-1 / 0 Formula Sheets
18th Jan 2022
This is just a reminder about the “final countdown” … I know its been a while since we’ve been preparing students for real exams but its now looking unlikely that we’ll have TAGs/CAGs (fingers crossed!) and so thought it timely to remind people about these. They are a small selection of questions on two or three topics each week meant to be used in the lead up to the exams – in the revision, exam prep & final countdown folder you will find these documents to support your students.
There are resources for Foundation students made up of 10 weeks for “working towards” style questions and 19 weeks of “Crossover” topics and for Higher tier students there are the “Crossover” topics and then 15 weeks for “Working” above. The way we use these is to send them out to parents (with solutions/markschemes sent out a week later) and students every week without fail via email.
The intention is that once the advance information is available from the boards we’ll review the content of these and adapt them going forward based on the information. In the meantime we didn’t want to wait for this information as we need students to think about preparing for their exams NOW!
17th Jan 2022
Grade boundary document have been updated to include the Nov 21 boundaries for all the boards. I have also updated the trend documents (e1) that show the trends for each board over time and also added a wbook (d1) that compares all of the Nov 21 boundaries from all the boards with each other.
10th Jan 2022
Mock set 7 has been released by Pearson and I have added worked solutions and the QLA to exam papers / samples, specimens and mocks. We have already used these as part of a trial with Pearson and the students found them very accessible. Consequently grade boundaries used were relatively high to maintain the percentages at 4+, 5+ and 7+ at the same point as previous years.
The alternate papers based on the November 21 papers are on their way.
9th Jan – Starting the EDEXCEL Foundation papers strong … High frequency (1/2 mark questions)
Following the annual frequency analysis of the topics that have appeared in the Edexcel Pearson papers up to and including November 2021 I have collated (most of) the one and two mark AO1 (using and applying) questions that appear anywhere in the papers where they fell into a high frequency topic to provide additional focussed material for students in the final lead up to their exams.
There are couple of things to note:
- I have not then included all the questions for a topic that falls into the above criteria – only the one or two mark questions and occasionally I have included some of the AO2/AO3 style questions (and subsequently 3 or 4 marks) below the main collection of questions.
- A few topics have been excluded despite falling into the criteria of being a high frequency one or two mark question but in reality they are multi-part questions or are mostly AO2/AO3 questions.
Each topic is on a separate sheet as they may be useful for revision sessions, lesson starters or homework. I have also included them as one continuous document to save paper.
NOTE: there is no guarantee that any of these topics will appear in the next sitting, but the intention is to build students confidence at the start of the papers.
You will find these worksheets/documents in 07 Revision, Exam Prep & Final Countdown/ 03 The Final Stretch / 01 Prep for Summer 2022
1. Powers, indices, roots & 4 operations | 15. Bar Charts, pictograms |
2. Simplifying expressions & Index Laws | 16. Types of number: Primes, factors & multiples |
3. Standard Form | 17. Product of primes factors, HCF & LCM |
4. Ratio | 18. Use of Calculator |
5. Rounding | 19. Inequalities |
6/7. Linear Equations: Solving & Forming | 20. Time (including simple speed & distance) |
Angle Facts (not included) | Reflections (not included) |
8. Fraction, Decimal & % conversions. | 21. Combinations |
9. Fraction equivalence | Conversion Graphs (not included) |
10. Fractions | 22. Metric conversions |
11. Sequences | 23. Properties of 2D shapes & 3D forms |
12. Probability Scale (and probability = 1) | 24. Area of simple shapes |
13. Substitution, Expanding & factorising | 25. Coordinates |
14. Place value & numbers into size order | 26. Percentages |
Straight Line Graphs (not included) | 27. Averages |
5th January 22
Happy New Year!!
RAG paper for November 21 Edexcel Higher Paper 1 is now available for use following mocks etc – which means all the foundation papers are now available. The other papers in this series are on their way and I will update this accordingly.
31st Dec
January Higher Maths Calendar and solutions for November (higher version) .. don’t forget that for “Crossover” and “basic skills” there are already 12 months calendars available (other resources/01 Monthly Maths Calendar).
13th December
RAG paper for November 21 Edexcel Foundation P3 is now available for use following mocks etc – which means all the foundation papers are now available. The other papers in this series are on their way and I will update this accordingly. I will also make “alternate” versions available over Christmas which examine the same skills but have the numbers changed to avoid students finding markschemes etc.
The video solutions for these papers are also available (password protected) on the exam solutions tab – passwords are available in Dept Admin / Using JustMaths.
6th December
RAG paper for November 21 Edexcel Foundation P2 is now available for use following mocks etc. The other papers in this series are on their way and I will update this accordingly.
The video solutions for these papers are also available (password protected) on the exam solutions tab – passwords are available in Dept Admin / Using JustMaths.
4th December – The RAG functionality is back up and running. Just a reminder that the link on the emails only remains live for 7 days … after this time the file is deleted from our server (GDPR apparently!!)
3rd December 2021 – We are aware of an issue with the RAG paper function and are working on resolving this. Please bear with us … I will advise when its back up and running.
1st December 2021
December Higher Maths Calendar and solutions for November (higher version) .. don’t forget that for “Crossover” and “basic skills” there are already 12 months calendars available (other resources/01 Monthly Maths Calendar).
Worked solutions for AQA November Higher Paper 3 also available.
28th November 2021
Firstly, can I remind you that anything on JMOnline is only for use this within your school and not to be shared with colleagues or friends that are not part of JMOnline – lots of time and effort has gone into collating this and I haven’t shared widely.
You will find some analysis showing the topics, number of marks and how many appearances each topic made in all the sittings of the Edexcel papers since June 2017 (excluding mocks etc) … There is also a tab for each tier that shows all the topics that have either made an appearance in every sitting (i.e. the high frequency topics) or in 5,6 or 7 of the sittings just because I thought these could be considered “semi” high frequency.
I have also added in information about the topics which have more than 3 marks per appearance for the foundation tier and more than 3.5 marks per appearance on Higher tier (they may not necessarily be high frequency topics) .
Finally I have highlighted those that are both high or semi-high frequency if they also come with high marks per question. You can off course cut and slice the data any way that you want! I have place this in the exam papers/ grade boundaries and data/ Frequency Analysis to Nov 21 folder.
With this information I will be updating the final stretch documents to include some practice questions for the high frequency questions to use after Christmas alongside the “final countdown” stuff that is already available and ready for use.
22nd November 2021
Question Level Analysis excel workbooks available for the November 21 Edexcel papers. The sheets for each paper are set up so that they can be used to generate RAG papers when they are available for these papers (Foundation P1 is done). You can also generate student specific QLAs using these by entering the student reference in cell E1 and the data from papers 1, 2 and 3 you’ve entered will appear for that specific student.
There is also a blank version if you want to print blank versions and get the students to fill them in.
Worked Solutions for AQA Higher paper 2 are also available.
19th November 2021
I’ve completed some analysis that shows the common assessment items between the higher and foundation tiers for the November papers for Edexcel and AQA. This is available in the exam paper folder / grade boundaries and data.
Worked Solutions for all the Edexcel November 21 papers are finished. AQA Foundation & Higher paper 1 is also available,
17th November 2021
RAG paper for November 21 Edexcel Foundation P1 is now available for use following mocks etc. The other papers in this series are on their way and I will update this accordingly.
10th November 2021
Updated video (including new Clip W/Sheet and solutions) and Quick hints now available for 61 Straight Line Graphs,
Bread and butter starter w/sheets continue to be uploaded for all SOWs.
Combined CheckIns for Working Above now available. (More CheckOuts and combined ones are on their way)
I have been asked by several people about whether or not we are intending on giving students formula sheets for their upcoming mocks … no we aren’t. The plan is to provide them at their final mocks in Mar/April (possibly!) as we genuinely believe in having a high bar at this stage so that students continue to work hard (or indeed start to work hard) and then anything that helps them in the final exam is a “brucey bonus” and not something we and them are relying on to get them the marks they need to get them over that finish line.
7th November 2021
Worked solutions for the November papers will be available as soon as the papers are available – Edexcel paper 1s and AQA Foundation paper 1 are already uploaded.
1st November 2021
November Higher Maths Calendar and solutions for October (higher version) .. don’t forget that for “Crossover” and “basic skills” there are already 12 months calendars available (other resources/01 Monthly Maths Calendar)
18th October – FORMULA SHEETS
On 30th September, the Department for Education (DfE) and Ofqual published the outcomes of the consultation on proposed summer 2022 adaptations, including optionality and advance Exam support materials and one of the adaptations for Maths was the inclusion of a Formula Sheet (this is the same information and applies to all boards). A release date is yet to be confirmed but the plan is that all boards will release the sheets at the same time and the sheets will include the same information for all boards (but there will be some formatting differences such a fonts etc) .
- There will be two sheets – one for each tier. Only those applicable to foundation tier content will be included in the foundation tier formulae sheet and the same for the higher tier formulae sheet. Some formulae may not be applicable and so may not be included. Note that any formulae that are usually given in the questions will still be included where applicable.
- The sheets will be available for the Summer and November 2022 GCSE Maths examinations – the same sheet will be used for the Summer and November 2022 GCSE Maths exams (It cannot be used for the November 2021 series even if it is released prior to these exams).
- Release date? (this will be one of the FAQs!) We are awaiting a release date (I suspect Ofqual and DfE need to confirm this.
- The content will be based on the list of formulae in the DfE subject Level Conditions and Requirements for Mathematics, February 2017 (pages 34 and 35) … the below image is exactly as shown in the Subject Level document and so the underlined notes do not apply and I would refer you to point 1 above for clarification
11th October 2021
Loads of you have asked me to continue to produce the bread and butter starters for Working Above which I am now doing alongside the Crossover ones.
Updated videos (including new Clip W/Sheet and solutions) and Quick hints now available for
- Scatter Graphs
- Time Series
- Coordinate Geometry 1
4th October 2021
Added to the site this evening:
- New Wsheet for UB and LB for working above SOW.
- Higher Maths Calendar for October – solutions will be made available when November is published towards the end of the month.
- Bread and butter starters for W/Above (more to come!)
30th September
Updated videos (including new Clip W/Sheet and solutions) and Quick hints now available for
-
- Circles 2
- Arcs & Sectors,
- Surface Area & Volume 1
- Surface Area & Volume 2
- Sampling
- Averages from a Table
- Averages from Grouped Data
- Pie Charts
14th September
Updated video (including new Clip W/Sheet and solutions) and Quick hints now available for 52 Averages.
Solutions for Crossover bread and butter 1.1 to 3.5 also uploaded.
NOTE: The “numbering” of the teaching resources folders in the Crossover folder now reflects the order of the SOW as per the attached student checklist (this also follows the order of the topics in the revision guide -> Ready? Set? Go! The Crossover ) b. Student Checklist From Sept21 v2
6th September 2021
Bread and butter starters for Working Above and Crossover will be uploaded on an ongoing basis and can be found in the “Starters” folders then 21-22. Note that the working above sheets include “crossover” material to ensure that this material is retained by the students and to act as an additional mechanism for checking prior knowledge. You will find a spreadsheet showing “order of topics” which gets updated when new sheets are uploaded so that you can see what topics are included in each sheet – I use this to make sure that topics are revisited regularly after they are initially taught.
Excel version of the Crossover SOW is available – we are tweaking the ability to have links (currently we have come across an issue whereby the documents would all need to be encrypted and so are seeking a solution to this) so please bear with us as we develop this functionality.
FOR UPDATES PRIOR TO THIS PLEASE (AND SOME THAT I MAY HAVE MISSED OFF HERE) SEE THE “NEW THIS WEEK” DOCUMENT IN THE DEPARTMENT ADMIN FOLDER / USING JUSTMATHS