Earlier this week I wrote a post and mentioned that I’d be more than happy to share what other exam boards are doing to support us through the changes to the GCSEs and in true fashion I was contacted by Neil Ogden from OCR giving me the low-down on what they’re up to and loads of other information:

“The despatch of OCR’s accredited GCSE maths Specification and Sample Assessment Materials (SAMs) to centres began this week and these should be in centres across the UK shortly. Some of the key differences of OCR’s new GCSE maths specification compared to others include

• 100 marks per question paper, giving us a large scope for awarding more method marks within questions. This means candidates can be better rewarded for each correct step on the way towards an answer.

• A column of required content suitable for ‘initial learning’ is set out in the specification document, ensuring that the basics can be established with learners before moving on to more difficult areas. This comprises the areas of the GCSE content that are also part of the KS3 curriculum, so forms a basis for beginning delivery of the GCSE in Year 9.

• The mathematical formulae that we are able to provide to candidates in the exam will be provided in each separate question when relevant, rather than on a formulae sheet at the front of the paper for candidates to then have to identify and choose the correct formula from.

• Professional language modifiers review all OCR GCSE maths papers and attend setting meetings to ensure that the wording we use is clear and simple for candidates.

Now that our GCSE maths qualification is accredited, we are focussing fully on developing resources to guide teachers through the change and support its delivery. We ran GCSE launch events in June and July and have further events to book through our CPD HUB ( next year; these are on ‘Planning for the new GCSE’, ‘Developing resources for the new GCSE’ and ‘Approaching problem solving in GCSE’ and all are completely free. Currently, myself and other members of the team are visiting centres and talking to teachers/departments/hubs about the changes taking place in the newly reformed GCSE maths (and other maths qualifications where appropriate), introducing OCR’s new accredited specification and discussing any issues and queries that teachers have. I’m more than happy to arrange visits with centres, if they would simply like to drop me an email or contact maths@ocr.org.uk.

We have already published a selection of resources  -> HERE  and will be frequently adding new resources to these. These include “check-in tests” (short tests intended for Year 9 learners, based on content in the ‘Initial Learning’ column of out GCSE maths specification), Transition Guides (which compare the delivery of an area of content over different stages, e.g. KS3 and GCSE, and include a resource task for learners making this transition), lesson elements, delivery guides, specification mapping guides and more.

We will also be creating further sets of SAMs, to give teachers and learners the best chance to prepare for new GCSE maths examinations. We are currently recruiting for the setters and revisers who will write the actual live papers and once they’re appointed, the first thing we’ll do with these assessors is begin development of further sets of SAMs, which will ensure that these SAMs are as comparable as possible to the new GCSE assessment from 2017.

We also recently launched our new ExamCreator service (-> MORE INFO HERE), which enables teachers to create questions papers based on past questions. Since there obviously won’t be any new GCSE maths past papers until after the 2017 exams, questions from the new GCSE maths SAMs will be available here and we are currently working on tagging current GCSE specification past paper questions (J562 and J567) to the new GCSE specification references (where possible; where there are content differences, we will write further questions to fill these gaps) so you will have a large bank of questions to draw from to create GCSE maths question papers based on the new specification.

We are also launching a mock paper service from 2016, which will feature new GCSE maths question papers. These will be produced to the same standards as official GCSE papers and will be available to download from a secure location, where learners won’t be able to view them from. They will feature well-presented, easy-to-interpret mark schemes, examiner’s commentary on points to look out for when marking and sample answers with examiner’s commentary.

We will have a Scheme Of Work Builder, due to be launched online in Easter next year. This will have various templates within it for teaching GCSE maths over 1, 2 or 3-year periods, which will be fully customisable by ‘dragging and dropping’ content topics in the templates. Since I’m aware teachers are beginning to deliver the new GCSE content to the new Year 9, we are currently putting the final touches to a 3-year scheme of work for GCSE maths (made up of a ‘transitional Year 9’, introducing the GCSE from the ‘Initial learning’ column of the specification, before moving on to the full GCSE content in Years 10 and 11), which will be available as a Microsoft Excel file shortly.

I have attached a guide I wrote to the new GCSE changes, if you would like to share that with any colleagues. Further documents, including the new accredited OCR Specification, Sample Assessment Materials and a selection of resources, are available from the OCR GCSE Maths site. If you’d like more information on any of these or have any queries, please let me know! “

 WOW  … Well done if you read all that … sounds like they’re doing loads of stuff! If you do want more information please do contact Neil using maths@ocr.org.uk