We’ve been planning … I don’t mean that I’m planning for my classes though. Big Gasp! Of course I’m doing that too! What I’m talking about is putting together our “Plan of Attack” for the new GCSE’s. Between us (I mean the 3 of us at JustMaths) we’ve decided that we’re going to go “all out” producing resources to support our first cohort through the changes … regardless of which exam board we choose you can rest assured that we’ll be keeping a beady eye on the approaches being taken by all the boards. Just to give you an idea of our “chain of thought” so far, and in no particular order:

  1. One of the key things will be getting enough practice at the new style of exam questions so we are going to put together some alternate sample assessment material, which is basically the same questions as the SAM’s but with the numbers tweaked. The idea is that we can use them once we’ve gone through, or used the “proper” papers as internal assessments.
  2. Ditto the above with regards any future “mocks” and “specimen” papers.
  3. “How to” worksheets will be produced similar to the ones that I’ve produced before which show WAGOLL (What A Good One Looks Like) solutions, followed by more practice questions along a similar theme.

I genuinely would love to produce the above for all the boards and that’s the plan (subject to change), but we have to factor in the fact that “by day” we are “normal boring” maths teachers. Ok so I’m not boring and Fize teaches ICT, so that just leaves Seager! And in his defence he isn’t “normal” either – he is genuinely one of the most energetic, driven people I know but with it comes having to work with him constantly “on the go”. Not sure how it must be to live with his brain working overtime … ALL THE FLIPPIN’ TIME!

What is DEFINITELY being done is that the current Top 40 is going to expand and become “the big fat 50” or even “the super 60”. We haven’t yet decided, but have discussed the idea of keeping a focussed “Top 40” and moving some of the current videos to make them supporting topics but we’re still working the fine details out. As a focussed revision plan, forty topics works really well.

** Come here, there’s more** (say it in a Jimmy Cricket stylie!) … And just like the current resources, each new topic will be supported by a whole range of worksheets and resources for us to teach with. (One of the first ones will be frequency trees!)

So that will all be in place as our current year 9’s approach year 11 (phew! We have time to GET THIS RIGHT!!) and then on an ongoing basis, after the first papers are sat in June 2017 I’ll be busy putting together “how to” worksheets (for the board that we will have chosen at that point in time), and Seager will be doing vids of the actual papers too (just like the ones on JustMaths Online which are password protected so that we can choose whether or not to give access to our students – we may give as a mock and so in that case they won’t get access).

I’d like to think that he’d be able to produce similar for the mocks and samples etc. but given that we can’t forget the current year 10 he’ll also have to continue to make tutorials for the 1MA0 spec right up until Nov 2016, so we’ll see how that pans out.

In the meantime, like I said we still have our current year 10s to consider so here is our current “to-do/Work in Progress” list:

  • Fize is working on improving the websites. The new JustMaths site whilst very pretty, we know that some of the “tiles” do weird jumping around on some operating systems and so he has been tasked with finding us a new “look”, whilst continuing to support and improve the functionality of the online site too.
  • Alongside all that we’re formalising everything we do as a department to produce an online departmental handbook for others to use and tweak the policies etc. That’s a nice summer (’15) job for me to pull together … I have a vision of how it will look and feel. As Stephen Covey would say “begin with the end in mind”.
  • We’ll continue to deliver training and supporting other schools either direct with our school, through the many maths conferences that are popping up, and also in conjunction with one of the examining bodies. The next few months are so busy you’d think I’d been pimping us out as being available for weddings, christenings and bar-mitzvahs! Ah .. now there’s a thought!
  • We’re also looking at putting on a JustMaths “thing” this Summer.. not sure what to call it really .. it’s just gonna be a training/conference/event/THING!! More on that to come.
  • Blogging to continue. I have fallen out of the habit of doing my midweek blog posts (Christmas has thrown my whole schedule out!) and I must get back on “me hoss”. Despite having long given up on my hope of writing, whilst sat on a Greek Island overlooking the sea I really do enjoy blogging. As I’ve chronicled our journey since September, the support and comments I’ve received from you lot has been amazing. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.
  • For me though, the one thing that I get really excited about, is producing useful resources and my plan is to continue to develop the below so that I have a whole suite of worksheets that can be used offering consistency in the classroom, whilst supporting with the basics whatever the level the students are working at. This is where I’m at with various ongoing worksheets and resources (updates have been added to the “extras tab” at JustMaths Online already) :
    • Bread and Butter worksheets for:
      • Key stage 3 ( here ) – I’ve done a couple more of these this week and am doing more as we go along.
      • Key Stage 4 ( link here  ) – every week I’m producing more of these for use with our year 11 “supergroup”
      • A/A* at GCSE. I have done the groundwork and know what topics are in ( my plan). These are on my “to do” list for the weekend to get a fair few weeks done.
    • Nitty Gritty worksheets ( found here ) for our numeracy page. I’ll revisit these after half term when the “background” home learning pages are complete for years 7 and 8 (I may blog about that more at some point!)
    • “Learn” Homeworks ( this post ) are again being written as I teach certain topics and I’m also intending on getting ahead of the game with writing up the next units on the collaborative scheme of work this weekend.

There is one thing left to ask you, dear reader … have I missed anything? Now where’s my broom because I don’t think we have enough to do!