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Total Maths Newsletter

Hello Colleague

How has term gone? We hope you’re keeping warm and are looking forward to a restful end of year break. 😊

Well done to all students that sat GCSE (9-1) Maths exams in the November 2024 series. All question papers are now available to download via Teach Cambridge. Results day for the series is Thursday, 9 January.

In November, Caroline and Neil sat down with Teachers Talk Radio to discuss accessibility in maths exams, particularly GCSE (9-1) Maths. It was a great in-depth discussion, was a ‘show of the week’ and has achieved  nearly 5,000 views…have you listened yet? It’s available now on the show’s website.

Our summer 2024 questions are being uploaded into ExamBuilder for you to use. The GCSE (9-1) Maths, Level 3 FSMQ: Additional Maths and Core Maths questions from the summer are available, with A Level coming soon.

As always, if you have any queries or we can give you any further support, please get in touch with us. Our role is to support you as you deliver our qualifications.

Neil, Ruth, Caroline, Amy and Steven - your OCR Maths Subject Advisors ☃️

maths@ocr.org.uk
@OCR_Maths
01223 553998
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Formulae sheets for GCSE (9-1) Maths and Level 3 FSMQ: Additional Maths
Student writing

Ofqual has now confirmed that formulae sheets can be provided to students sitting GCSE (9-1) Maths (and Physics & Combined Science) exams in 2025, 2026 and 2027.

This means we'll also continue to provide the extra formulae sheet to students sitting Level 3 FSMQ: Additional Maths in these years.

The design of the formulae sheets to be used in 2025 will be the same as those used in 2024, 2023 and 2022. Formulae sheets for the 2025 exams are now available, for use in student preparation.

Formulae sheets update
New resources

We’ve published many new resources for you in the past few weeks. All are now available from Teach Cambridge.

First, the summer 2024 GCSE (9-1) Maths Alternative Papers. These are amended versions of the original summer 2024 question papers, providing you with another set of papers for use as mocks or to help review student progression.
Person looking at Teach Cambridge on a laptop

We’ve also updated our GCSE (9-1) Maths Curriculum Planners. These provide a suggested teaching order for delivering the qualification and have been updated to include many new links to available resources.

Also for GCSE (9-1) Maths, we’ve published new Revision Checklists for students. These resources are ‘medium’ and ‘short’ versions of our Foundation and Higher tier checklists, reducing your printing needs by condensing the checklists down into shorter documents.

Finally, our summer 2024 Candidate Exemplars are now being published for a number of our qualifications, including GCSE (9-1) Maths, A Level Maths and A Level Further Maths. These show you a range of different candidate responses to questions from the summer series, including common misconceptions, clever methods and marking pointers (useful if you’re using the papers as mocks and getting ready to mark them).

Teach Cambridge
GCSE (9-1) Maths introductory webinars
GCSE Maths for all

In the coming days we have our next short (30 minute) GCSE (9-1) Maths webinars, each focussing on a specific aspect of our qualification.

Book your place:

Whether you’re new to the qualification or more experienced and just wanting to make sure you’re aware of all the latest support and resources we’ve published recently, get yourself a place now. Please feel free to book onto both or just one.

If you’d instead prefer to hear all the content in a single session, book yourself a place on our 14 January ‘Choosing OCR GCSE (9-1) Maths’ session (please see the article below).

GCSE (9-1) Maths for all
Professional development for 2024/25

Our professional development courses coming up in the remainder of this term and into 2025 are below.

Head over to our maths professional development webpage to book your place now.
Teachers talking
  • Wednesday 11 December - AS & A Level Maths B (MEI) summer 2024 exam review
  • Tuesday 14 January - Choosing OCR GCSE (9-1) Maths
  • Wednesday 15 January - Developing problem-solving skills in pure maths for A Level Maths A and A Level Maths B (MEI)
  • Tuesday 21 January -  Starting to Teach OCR GCSE (9-1) Maths.

Materials from past courses are available to download from Teach Cambridge. Select your qualification, then in the menu go to ‘Training’, then ‘Past training events’.

Maths Professional Development
A Level Maths and Further Maths blogs on Command Words and vocabulary
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Steven and Amy have begun writing a series of blogs on A Level Command Words. The first three focus on ‘In this question you must show detailed reasoning’, ‘Determine’ and ‘Show that’. Each includes numerous examples of past questions, as well as hints, tips and comments from Principal Examiners.

Amy has also written a blog on the importance of vocabulary in statistics for A Level Maths and Further Maths. This blog was written with feedback from the Principal Examiners, and addresses some of the common misconceptions they see when marking papers.

Leave a comment on any of our blogs to let us know your thoughts and to carry on the conversation.

For many more blogs, please visit our ‘maths blogs’ webpage.

Maths blogs
Examine with us

If you’d like to mark exam papers in 2025, we’re currently recruiting Examiners for GCSE (9-1) Maths, Level 3 FSMQ: Additional Maths, Further Maths A and Further Maths B (MEI). It’s a great opportunity to develop your understanding of a qualification and the assessment process.

You can also browse other opportunities and sign up for job alerts on our Assessment Specialist webpage.
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View vacancies

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