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Maths newsletter

Hello Colleague

We hope you’ve been having a great term and are getting ready to enjoy the end of year celebrations with colleagues, family and friends. 😊

Well done to all students that sat GCSE (9-1) Maths exams in the November 2025 series. Question papers are now all published on Teach Cambridge. Draft mark schemes should be published in the next few days (please keep an eye on @OCR_Maths to see when they’re published). Final mark schemes will then be published on results day for the series, which is Thursday 8 January 2026.

The Curriculum and Assessment Review has now published its final report, outlining key finding and recommendations to the government. Many of the issues raised in our own Striking the Balance report â€“ including less exam time, a more relevant curriculum and climate education â€“ have also been highlighted by the Review. You can read a summary on our dedicated webpage and news story.

Would you be interested in marking with us next year? We're now recruiting summer 2026 examiners for GCSE (9-1) Maths, AS / A Level Maths and AS / A Level Further Maths. It’s a great opportunity to develop your understanding of the qualification and the assessment process. If you’re interested, please see the final article below for further information. 

As always, if you ever have any queries or if we can give you any further support, please let us know. Our role is to support you as you deliver our qualifications.

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

maths@ocr.org.uk
@OCR_Maths
01223 553998
OCR-Newsletter-Box-shaddow
New GCSE (9-1) Maths resources – A mastery approach
Teacher working on a laptop

Mastery and visual methods are increasingly being used in teaching for GCSE (9-1) Maths, but aren’t always used by students when it comes to exams. To help develop students’ confidence, we’ve created a series of 12 ‘A mastery approach’ worksheets.

Each worksheet focuses on an area of content from the GCSE (9-1) Maths specification and demonstrates how such methods can be used to successfully respond to a range of reasoning and problem-solving exam questions.

Commentary on the methods is included, along with indications of how they can be marked.

All 12 worksheets are available now from Teach Cambridge. In the main menu, go to ‘Assessment’ and then ‘Practice materials’ to download them along with many more practice materials.

Teach Cambridge
Formatting negative numbers in GCSE (9-1) Maths assessments

Following feedback in our post-exam surveys, we're keen to get your opinion about different styles of formatting negative numbers in our GCSE (9-1) Maths assessments.

This short survey won't take up too much of your time and we really appreciate your insight and feedback.

Complete survey
Teacher pointing at a laptop
Updated Core Maths candidate style answers
Teacher working with two students

We’ve just published new Core Maths candidate style answers resources, which have been updated in line with the recent changes to assessment materials for the qualification. These changes ensure our papers meet our latest accessibility principles and best support your students.

In September, we published updated sample assessment materials (SAMs) to help familiarise you with these changes. These updated candidate style answers have now been published to go along with the updated SAMs. The changes include improved question structuring and wording.

The updated candidate style answers are now available to download from Teach Cambridge for both Core Maths A and Core Maths B. Both medium banded responses and high banded responses are available.

For more information on these changes and links to the updated SAMs, please see our recent subject update.

Core Maths A    Core Maths B
Professional development for 2025/26

We have several professional development courses coming up for you soon. Head over to our maths professional development webpage for more information and to book your place now.
Teachers talking

The courses below are running in the next few weeks.

  • Tuesday 2 December – GCSE (9-1) Maths Ask The Subject Advisor Q&A
  • Monday 8 December – GCSE (9-1) Maths Foundation tier Summer 2025 exam review
  • Monday 26 January – Exploring the Exam: A Level Maths A
  • Wednesday 28 January – Starting to Teach GCSE (9-1) Maths

We also have several on-demand professional development courses available that can be browsed on our maths professional development webpage. Keep an eye out for more appearing in the future.

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

Maths professional development
Upcoming maths Teacher Networks
Teachers talking

We still have a couple of Teacher Networks left this term. These are completely free to attend and set up to bring maths teachers together, so we can share relevant updates, answer your questions, discuss best practice collectively and more.

Book your place now for any of the below.
  • Wednesday 3 December – A Level Further Maths (online) – We’ll focus on the optional Pure strands of our qualifications (Additional Pure / Extra Pure) and compare the Groups content in these, including an exploration of typical questions and strategies/resources for them.
  • Tuesday 9 December – Level 3 FSMQ: Additional Maths (online) – We’ll review student performance trends over time, as well as looking at accessibility and misconceptions.

Whether you’re already teaching a qualification or just interested in learning more, you’re very welcome to attend. We look forward to seeing you there.

If you’d be interested in running a future face-to-face network at your school or college, please let us know.

Teacher Networks
New A Level Maths blog

Proof is one of the most powerful tools in mathematics, but also one that can be a challenge for many students to master. To help support them and you, Steven has just published ‘A Level Maths: what examiners want to see for proof’. Steven's blog uses some past exam questions to help explore common pitfalls, along with offering practical teaching strategies to help you.

View our full range of maths blogs online.

Maths blogs
Teachers working on a laptop
Examine with us
Student in an exam

If you’d like to mark question papers in summer 2026, there are currently examiner roles for GCSE (9-1) Maths, AS / A Level Maths and AS / A Level Further Maths. Marking typically takes 2-3 weeks within May to July. Full training will be provided and it’s an excellent opportunity to work within the exam system, as well as develop your own understanding of a qualification and how it is assessed.

Visit our Assess Cambridge recruitment website and search for ‘Mathematics’ to view all the roles and find further details.

View vacancies

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