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Maths supporting you during coronavirus
July - Total Maths

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the July edition of Total Maths.

How are you? We hope all is well with you and everyone close to you.

We’re almost at the end of the 2019-2020 teaching year and it’s fair to say it’s probably been the most ‘interesting’ one there’s been for a while… Well done for getting through, we hope you enjoy the summer as much as you can and thank you very much for the work that you’ve done getting centre assessment grades and rank orders submitted.

We're currently working hard on the information that you’ve sent us, so that students will receive the grades that they deserve on results day. In addition to that, we’ll also be spending the summer putting together more resources and support for you ready for 2020-2021.

If you have any questions or feedback, then please contact us. Our role is to support you as you deliver our qualifications.

Neil, Ruth, Caroline and Steven -  your Maths Subject Advisors
maths@ocr.org.uk
@OCR_Maths
01223 553998
OCR-Newsletter-Box-shaddow
Support for current times
Online support Maths

As we move towards August we're continuing to update our support pages with more information on the standardisation process and results day.

We've published a new infographic, showing how centre assessment grades are standardised for GCSEs, AS and A Levels, and other general qualifications. 

We also still have a support section for students that you may wish to direct your classes to, including our blogs on mindfulness and mental health and finding your place during school closures.

We will continue to update the pages as more information is confirmed.

View support page
Returning to school

We recently surveyed some of you to help us understand your main concerns in these unprecedented times.

  • How can I make up for lost time?
  • How do I deal with variations in students’ motivation, engagement, knowledge and understanding while they’ve been away from school?
  • How do I transition new Y11 and Y13 students back and prepare them for next year’s exams?
Returning to school

To help address some of your concerns and support your students, we’ve worked with our Cambridge colleagues in Cambridge Assessment International Education, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Mathematics, CEM and others to create a comprehensive package of support.  

New resources we’re creating include support highlights, condensed schemes of work, topic tests and alternative practice papers.

Find out more
Ofqual 2021 assessment consultation
Ofqual 2021 consultation

On Thursday 2 July, Ofqual launched a new consultation on 2021 exams and assessment.

The consultation proposes potential changes to the sampling of content for some qualifications, but states the Department for Education does not want changes to the way content is sampled for GCSE (9-1) Maths nor any AS and A Levels.

Other proposals include amending the summer 2021 timetables, such as by delaying assessments to begin after half-term while considering any impact that this may have the date of results days.

More information is available in our news article.

The consultation is open until 23:45 on Thursday 16 July and we strongly encourage you to respond.

Read our summary
Confirmation of the autumn 2020 series

Ofqual has now reported back on their consultation on the autumn 2020 series, which will enable students affected by the cancelled summer 2020 series to sit assessments.

The exam series this autumn will offer the full suite of GCSE, AS and A Level exams, reviews of marking and appeals will be available as normal and replacement certificates showing the higher of summer or autumn grades will be available for students who request them.
Confirmation of autumn series

Exam timetables are still to be confirmed, but the expectation is for AS and A Level exams to be in October and GCSEs in November.

More information is available in our news article.

Read our summary
GCSE (9-1) Maths - how to use the specification to prepare for teaching in 2020-21
GCSE maths how to use the spec to prepare for teaching

Neil has recently written a GCSE (9-1) Mathematics blog, looking at using the specification to adapt 2020-2021 Schemes of Work to focus on the content best for your students.

He considers the columns of content in our GCSE (9-1) Mathematics specification and how much each will be assessed in the question papers.

Take a look at the full range of our maths blogs on the blogs page.

Read maths blogs
New maths resources

We’ve published a number of new resources in the last few weeks.

For GCSE (9-1) Mathematics we have a new ‘Support Highlights’ resource that leads you through the key support available from us and other organisations, so you know what’s available and where to find it.
Maths resources

Also now available are new ‘Grade 1-4 Practice Materials', which can be used to support those students that find the full range of Foundation papers challenging.

To help you prepare Schemes of Work for 2020-2021 for A Level Maths A and Maths B, we’ve published new ‘Curriculum Planners’, ‘Support highlights’ and ‘Cambridge International Resource Plus Mapping’.

For A Level Further Maths B (MEI) we’ve published a number of new Section Check In tests in the last few weeks, including most recently ‘Polar Coordinates’.

There’s still more to come, keep an eye on @OCR_Maths for the latest updates.

Maths resources

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