So long time no speak! Lifes been busy don’t you know!

Actually it’s more than that … the world has changed and so have I. I’ve wanted to get on here and “just write” like I used to pre-covid but every time I’ve thought about it I’ve stopped myself for fear of upsetting someone or saying the wrong thing. What’s happening to me? Does that mean I’m finally showing some empathy? (nah, of course not!)

Anyway, part of the support to students in the Summer 22 GCSEs is the use of a “Formula sheet” for want of a better description … when they were released by the boards (they all have the same information) I think it is fair to say some maths teachers (including myself) were a little underwhelmed. Amongst other things, there was a genuine WTF moment when I looked at the compound interest formula on the foundation tier information … this is not the boards fault by the way … the information as published in the specifications has been replicated. If we were genuinely looking to support our foundation students with lost learning what about about area of a triangle, rectangle etc but no … a fecking formula that most will never have seen. It is what it is though and no amount of bitching and moaning by me is going to change it. Just makes you wonder whether people making these decisions have actually been into a “normal” school recently.

So … the sheets had only just been published when we did our first set of mocks so we didn’t use them … imagine asking someone who had never cooked (but eats food obviously) to cook you a meal by handing them a recipe book and shoving them into your kitchen. The intention is that students need to use them and know what information is and more importantly, ISN’T useful so I’ve put together some slides for higher and foundation (using the Pearson/ Edexcel sheet) which I’ve called “tick or trash” showing which parts our students can use “as given” and which they will have learnt other methods … that’s not to say they shouldn’t use them if all else fails!  I’ve left some ticks and bins on the side of each slide so that you can adapt them for your own classes (It’ll make sense if you open the PPT)

I’ve also collated some questions from the old spec to demonstrate whether or not we’d use the information given on the sheets and that way we can use them in the next mocks.

You can find the files below (I have already put in the teacher toolkit on JustMaths Online):

a. Using the Formula Sheets – Pearson F PPT

a. Using the Formula Sheets – Pearson H PPT

a Using the Formula Sheeet – Pearson F WSHEET

a Using the Formula Sheeet – Pearson H WSHEET

If someone wants to collate some similar questions for AQA and OCR and send them over I’ll do some slides for those boards too and share here too.

Back soon … maybe x