Going for Gold: GCSE Maths Problem Solving – TES Maths ROTW

The following resource has been kindly shared on the TES Maths website. It is available to download for free by registering. And to access all the lovely Resource of the Week (ROTW) resources, just click here

What is it?
It is one thing for students to know the skills involved in a particular topic, but it is quite another one for them to be able to apply these skills to solve the longer-form, unstructured exam questions. I know this is an area my Year 11s tend to struggle with. Therefore, you can imagine my delight when I stumbled upon Going for Gold. It is a series of 10 maths lessons, each covering a specific topic, designed to help students tackle this very issue. Each topic comes complete with a PowerPoint and worksheet, and the topics covered include Pythagoras, Ratio and Exchange Rates.

How can it be used?
At the time of writing, my Year 11s are in the final push towards their GCSE exams, so this resource is ideal. We have covered all the content, but the level of understanding across the class in certain topics is not where it needs to be, and key marks are being dropped! Going for Gold tackles this issue head-on by giving the students (and you as their teacher) a way to ascertain how “exam-ready” they are. For each topic there are consolidation questions to attempt (50% exam ready), before moving onto the more challenging questions, which come with different levels of support (Bronze = 60% ready, Gold = 100% ready). Having completed the consolidation questions as I class, I gave my students the Gold version of the questions, but had the others on hand for when they needed them. They were focussed and engaged, enjoying both the support and the challenge, and I believe this excellent resource has had a positive influence on their levels of confidence and willingness to answer these sorts of questions.

Thanks for sharing!
Craig Barton

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