Worked Examples – A Level Maths and Further Maths

A new site, Dr Oliver Mathematics will be so valuable, and a time-saver!

On Doctor Oliver Mathematics you will find an extensive library of worked examples, access these via examination papers or choose questions by topic. It is so useful that the question and solution are presented together. At A level you will find both Mathematics and Further Mathematics.

Doctor Oliver Mathematics

Note also the sections on Proof for A Level Maths and also Further Maths, and the definitions for Year 12.

I have added this brilliant site to the following collections:

Doctor Oliver Mathematics

On the subject of Simpson’s rule, we could use this online utility from zweigmedia.

See Online Utilities for more, I’m impressed that this is all available – I wrote that post back in 2012!


Mathematical Miscellany #81


One of the Lesson Planning series of pages is on Misconceptions, this has been updated recently to include examples of helpful material from the examination boards which address common misconceptions, such resources can promote very useful class discussion as can examiners’ reports.

See for example AQA’s Exploring Common Misunderstandings in GCSE Maths.

Cambridge University – Common Errors in Mathematics

From Cambridge University, see Common Errors in Mathematics.

Edexcel’s A Level scheme of work which is freely available on their website includes for each section, Common misconceptions/examiner report quotes. The point made in the notes which follow is such an important comment, I have seen many errors that would have been avoided if only students had looked at a picture of their work.


In Mathematical Miscellany #77, I mentioned one of my go-to websites, Corbett Maths, I was interested to see that John Corbett has been adding some updates. I noted in that post 6 new Estimated Mean and 10 new Order of Operations questions, he has now updated Expanding two brackets and Substitution; video solutions are available for both.


From Tim Brzezinski, here’s a lovely collection of Open Middle themed problems where students build special quadrilaterals in the coordinate plane so vertices have no repeated coordinates.

On the subject of quadrilaterals, have a look at this new resource, a Measuring Shapes workbook from Curriculum for Wales. 


Diary Dates


Thursday, March 2nd

World Book Day, the World Book Day page includes ideas for Maths activities, also many recommended books.

AQA - Read All About It
AQA – Read All About It

Wednesday. 8th March – World Maths Day

Free for all students to take part, registration opens on 22nd February, but you can pre-register to stay up to date with the latest updates and important announcements about the event; if you pre-register you will be sent a Teacher Handbook. See Frequently Asked Questions for further information. World Maths Day is designed to start simultaneously across all regions so students can compete against students from across the globe – not just in their time zone. This also means that some students will have access on the 7th of March.


March 6th – March 11th – National Careers Week

National Careers Week (NCW) is a one-week celebration of careers guidance and free resources in education across the UK. Follow National Careers Week for updates.

See Linking Curriculum Learning to Careers for guidance and resources for Mathematics.

4. Linking curriculum learning to careersAll teachers should link curriculum learning with careers. For example, STEM subject teachers should highlight the relevance of STEM subjects for a wide range of future career paths.

Tuesday, March 14th

Pi Day – why not try NASA’s Pi Day Challenge which goes live on March 9th?

Celebrate Pi Day with NASA

March 14th is also the International Day of Mathematics. The theme for 2023 is Mathematics for Everyone.

Looking at the suggestions to decorate an International Day of Mathematics event note this Mathematical Origami from the amazing Mathigon site.

Mathigon-Origami

Wednesday, April 26th

With the Junior Maths challenge approaching in April, a reminder of Challenge Prompts and other problem-solving resources.

Challenge Prompts – Andrew Stewart Brown

Talking of dates, we could try Days and Dates from Nrich or Calendar Maths investigation on Transum.

Transum – Calendar Investigation

Statistics – Large Data Sets

The A Level (16+) resources collection includes a page on large data sets. This has been completely updated to provide further resources. Whilst UK exam board-specific resources are covered there are additional resources here that could be used for any exam board and for teaching statistics generally.

Included on the page are:

  • Resources for all exam boards
  • AQA
  • Edexcel
  • OCR A
  • OCR – MEI
  • Further data sets and teaching resources

A small sample of the many resources on the page:

AMSP Workbook
Lucyjc – Knowledge Organisers – Statistics
WJEC Large Data Set Resources
WJEC – Exploring Large Data Sets
STEM Learning