From Colin Foster on Nrich we have Mathematical Etudes where he discusses lovely rich tasks and tedious exercises!

Colin Foster – Mathematical Etudes

An important read as we begin another school year I feel, the more our students have to think about a task, the more they will learn. I agree with Colin liking the factors task, I have used this approach successfully in class too. In fact we can extend the task and look at finding numbers with varying numbers of factors.

How many Factors – nzmaths

How Many Factors on nzmaths requires students to  find ways to group numbers, which numbers have only two factors and which have only three factors?

For more from Colin Foster his KS3 Instant Maths Ideas (3 books) are freely available online; these contain a wealth of ideas to try in the classroom. Colin Foster is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Research in Mathematics Education in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham.

From PhET Simulations one of my favourites is now available in HTML5 collection: Projectile Motion.

PhET Projectile Motion

I have included a page on PhET simulations in the Tools and Calculators series of pages, part of the Lesson Planning collection.

Educas has many very useful secondary and vocational resources for Maths. Note the series of resources for topics new to the GCSE specification.

I have mentioned Dr Jamie Frost and his plans for the new A Level specifications. Dr Frost has been very busy producing a complete set of resources for Pure Mathematics 1, I do like the fact that Dr Frost has included extension questions for each chapter. These resources reference an Edexcel text but of course the content is common to all qualifications so all the explanations and worked examples for A Level. I have included a page for Dr Frost’s resources as part of the A Level series. Note the collection of extension questions mapped to the new specification.

Dr Frost has some brilliant ‘Just for your interest’ posters; see this for example on e. He has put the complete collection of these together. Follow Dr Frost on Twitter.

For more A Level (UK 16+) resources, Danielle Moosajee has a growing collection of A Level resources on her site PixiMaths, Check her KS5 Teaching Resources Index. The resources include very clear PowerPoints, associated questions and student self-assessments.

A consistently popular post on this blog is one on online whiteboards. All resources / links have been checked and I have removed resources which have not been updated for some considerable time as I think this is a cause for concern regarding the longevity of the resource.

Doodle.ly

With UK examination results recently announced I have put links to the results statistics and grade boundaries on the Results 2017 page. Also included are some interesting links from Schools Week, see A-level results 2017: UK subject tables which compare results from 2014-2017. Also from Schools Week, on GCSEs – GCSE Subject Tables and “The 7 most interesting things we have learned”

An important read I feel on such Statistics from Cambridge Mathematics, Examining our own statistical literacy on results day. which makes such important points about the size of the dataset required for it to be explored in context.

And finally, here’s a great read from Shaun Allison on Getting off to the best start with a new class.