From Simon Haines, comes an excellent new site for learners and teachers of A Level Mathematics, most definitely one to keep any eye on. Do explore. On Mathematico, you will find resources for learning and teaching online, including Videos, tutorials, interactives and more. Additionally teachers can create classes and invite students. Follow @mathematico_org on Twitter.

I do like the clarity of explanations in the tutorials I have seen on Mathematico and high quality of the resources; the site is uncluttered and visually appealing. Examples are carefully chosen and progress from fluency to challenge. The Pure topics covered as I write are as follows:

Each section here leads to a new menu.

Looking at Functions for example, we see the following:

Activities are varied, looking at Domain and Range for example, we have a card matching activity.

For exercises and activities learners can choose to display hints.

One can so happily get lost in Mathematics on this site…!

As well as Pure Topics, an Enrichment section is under development – there are some lovely questions on factorials I see as well as a Geometry section.

I think the best way to describe the thinking behind this site is in Simon’s own words.

“I’m making Mathematico because I want to help students build confidence by mastering key skills, and then put those skills to use in a variety of increasingly challenging problems which highlight the connections with previous topics. I sometimes feel like my students would appreciate going through problems in more detail than lesson time allows, and they all have different needs. With Mathematico, they can practise skills until they feel ready to move on, get in depth explanations for every problem, keep on top of the course with spaced repetition, and give their teacher realtime feedback on what they’re finding difficult. I’ve been using it with my classes this year and it has been brilliant, not least because it has helped with remote learning. Over the next couple of years, Mathematico will grow to cover the whole A Level and several extension topics so students and teachers can benefit from it as a learning resource, revision guide, and hopefully a source of inspiration for those interested in STEM careers.”

A new page has been added to the top menu, Updates features recent changes to posts as well as showing recent posts.

I often check and update posts and pages, particularly very popular ones. I will use the Updates page to note any changes. So currently you will see that The Standards Unit page has been recently updated, not only with the HTML5 software but with some Desmos Classroom Activities by Ben Sparks for some of the Standards Unit Tasks.

We also have from AMSP, Where maths meets the world of work which has been added to Linking Curriculum Learning to Careers.

Further updates include links to GeoGebra resources on my Edexcel A level page and Jonny Giffiths’ wonderful publications on Free Books.

This week, from November 9th to November sees the return of Maths Week England, an annual national celebration of mathematics. As well as the website, also available are Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter pages. 

Note the menu item, Daily Pages, keep an eye on this during the week, each link becomes live on the day with a link to that day’s resources.

There are several organisations partnering with Maths Week England including MEI whose brilliant Sumaze apps are free from 9th November and are running a Desmos Art competition. Whether or not you or your students are entering the competition note all the instructions for creating Desmos Art. MEI has provided written and video instructions for creating art suitable for students at three different levels,

See my post on Graph Art for a little more on Art with Desmos and WolframAlpha.

Have a look at the free Primary and Secondary resources; the secondary resources include from amsp, Where maths meets the world of work. The AMSP is working on videos, which will showcase the maths in different careers; each video will be paired with a resource for the classroom or for use online, so students can get a real taste of what the job may entail. Looking at the first video ‘Try being a Data Detective’ there are 4 versions of resource available for students from KS2 to KS5 Core Maths and A Level Maths.

These look excellent, the activities highlight the importance of maths skills in careers and link directly to the Maths Curriculum. This provides superb support for Mathematics Teachers to meet Gatsby Benchmarks 4 and 5; see Linking Curriculum Learning to Mathematics.

Other secondary resources include Maths Week Escape Room! This resource is free and includes 15 puzzles with hints and answers available at the end of the 21 page document.

Various competitions are running throughout the week, remember that the Royal Statistical Society has a young statisticians section, the RSS are running a Chart Competition for Primary School aged children.

Having studied some Operational Research modules at University, I am always interested to see the outreach work of the Operational Research Society and have in fact signed up for their educational webinars running during the week at 1pm, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

To finish – a roundup of the weeks events from @maths_week: