Hi Maths
The Friday bulletin on a Friday! What a treat.
It has been a crazy week with the year 11 mock exams. Over here at BBA we have been delighted with how they have gone. The perseverance of some of our students on a very difficult paper (Higher paper 2) was amazing.
I sat down to write a model answer for this question yesterday as there was no-one in my class who scored more than 3 marks on it. It was on both the Foundation and Higher papers.
When marking the question it was apparent that it was the organisation of the work that caused most students problems, not the fact that they couldn’t do it. The students in my class kept making mistakes and then scribbling out their working, which meant they ran out of room.
When I wrote out my model answer, my first attempt didn’t fit in the space either! I had to redraft my working so that it could fit in the space but still include all my working in a way that clearly explained what I was doing.
Although I spend a lot of time in lessons on exam technique and how to answer non-routine questions, I know that I haven’t done much work with my year 11 classes in the past on drafting and redrafting work in exam conditions. This is something I want to investigate further and will be working on over the next few weeks.
My favourite question on paper 2 was this one:
It requires knowledge of Venn diagrams, conditional probability and forming and solving quadratics. Lovely! I think our students will enjoy looking at how to answer these types of questions. The challenge for us is how do we include opportunities for such questions in our everyday teaching?
What was your favourite question? The geeks among you can answer in the comments section below!
On the subject of the mock exams, the East Midlands West Maths Hub are holding a Maths GCSE revision Teach Meet on 6th December from 4-6pm at George Spencer Academy. A flyer is attached here. It is open to anyone who would like to attend.
The local Maths Hub events are always really good opportunities to keep up to date with the very latest news in maths education, as well as a great opportunity to form supportive networks with other maths teachers. We have two local hubs, East Midlands West and East Midlands East who both offer excellent opportunities.
East Midlands West Bulletin November 2016
East Midlands East Newsletter November 2016
Just a final reminder that today is the deadline for data input for years 7-10 and that midday next Friday is the deadline for all year 11 marks to be in Go 4 Schools. Thank you to everyone who has input their data so far.
Matilde