Making the Grade post-16

GCSE Resit Maths

D to C grade...

Julia Smith

Twitter: @tessmaths

makingthegraded2c.wordpress.com

• Draws from

makingthegraded2c.wordpress.com

• Influenced by The Policy Exchange

• Pedagogical Principles from the Eight

Effective Principles of Teaching

Mathematics by Malcolm Swan

Research based Scheme of Work

Makingthegraded2c.wordpress.com

• Build on prior knowledge

• Expose & discuss misconceptions

• Develop Effective Questioning

• Use co-operative small group work

• Emphasise methods rather than answers

• Use Rich Collaborative Tasks

• Create connections between mathematical topics

• Use technology in appropriate ways

The Eight Effective Principles of Teaching

Mathematics - Malcolm Swan

The Facts

The Facts

The Facts #eek

The Facts #eek2

• Some students having sat GCSE 10 times

• Towns are gridlocked with traffic on exam

days

• Classes of 47+ students...its ok though...they

don’t all turn up!

• Cost of tables, chairs, halls, calculators,

protractors

• Invigilators

• Courses are closing

The reality...

• The FE system runs for £4bn

• Universities have an annual income of £30bn

• In 2013-14, there were 1.3m full-time and

556,000 part-time British students at UK

universities

• In the same year, 2.9m adults were at

further education colleges

• YOU DO THE MATHS...double the students

1/7 of the money

The Landscape

• FE is resilient and proactive

• FE faces the challenge head on

with aggressively obstinate

students who don’t want to be

there... and often aren’t

• FE Vocational Staff are teaching

GCSE

• FE is not a miracle worker...

The Further Education Sector

On a post-it note please write down

what a student will say if you ask

them that question

Share your ideas on your table

Any commonalities?

Why did they get a D?

n What is that student like?

n How do they behave?

n What are the characteristics?

n Plea from an FE teacher...

A post-16 student

n They have seen all the maths before, over

a number of years - they have a D grade!

n They can do some maths and they can’t do

some bits

n They will have forgotten stuff since June

n Some will still have resat multiple times

n They don’t feel too good about this

Key Points

n The Scheme of Work has to have some key features and

be presented in a different way. What didn’t work

before will not work again! It has to look different.

n Recall

n Routine

n Revise

n Repeat

n Ready

A Bespoke Diet- the 5 R’s

• Recall– a fast ‘n furious starter

– name the 1st 20 prime numbers

– draw the parts of a circle

– sketch & name all the quadrilaterals

– based on MA 48 Killer Facts for a C grade

• Routine• practice, practice, practice

– Corbett maths 5-a-day

– Just Maths Bread & Butter

– 30 second challenges

– m4ths.com challenges

Recall & Routine

• Revise the key C/D borderline topics• Hegarty Maths & Corbett Maths videos

• Just Maths Top 40

• m4ths.com Help Sheet

• Resourceaholic

• Repeat• prethomeworks

• Corbett maths practice questions

• Topic questions

• Studymaths.co.uk

Revise & Repeat

• Complete Passport

• Complete Help Sheet

• Complete Symballoo

• Past Papers

• Miss B’s Resources Quick Wits Revision

Ready?

• Corbett Maths Symballoo

• M4ths Help Sheet

• Passport to Success

• Admit/Exit tickets

• Run a bespoke Revision Year

• GCSE Express

• Growth Mindset work

• Higher Paper

• Maths Leaders

• Be creative - work in a different way

• CPD - NCETM Maths Pipeline

• Maths Grads into FE

• So what do we do?

• Be Creative

• Be Creative

• So what do we do?

• Homework

• Mathematical Association Postcards

• QR reader for Starters

• Twitter, Moodle & Edmodo

• Whole Organisational Approach

• Everyone maths teacher

• So what do we do?

• So what else can we do?

• Over to you...

• A perfect storm is coming...

• Exams, staff, attendance, results

• It is tantamount to child cruelty with

current exam logistics that are only

going to get worse

• One has to question why are we going

to all this effort for so little success!

• In Summary...

• As Mark McCourt says...

• Teach them really really well and

make them really really bright...

• Then we don’t need to see them

A plea from a GCSE Resit classes to KS4