Following the massive success of our Core Maths Online Festival in the summer, we are holding a series of support groups specific to the various exam board syllabuses.
Participants from all over the country joined our Core Maths Online Support Group for those teaching AQA 2A on Tuesday 13 October 2020 at 4pm. We spent the first half of the session sharing resources. Whilst some of us were looking for more resources, some were also looking for strategies to find teaching material effectively, reflecting on the fact that Core Maths is one of the many things that they have to teach, and they would like to be able to find resources quickly. Several in the group have said that they need material on linear regression which is more suited to Core Maths than A level, and other participants in the group provided teaching ideas and materials. The ethos of these sessions is for teachers to help each other.
In the second half of the session, participating teachers discussed their concerns and teaching ideas in groups. Topics ranged from timing in scheme of learning and teaching Normal Distribution to Core Maths students to, “how to teach sampling without sounding like a GCSE repeat?”. Teachers really enjoyed the session, and have all gone away with something useful, as well as a good network of other Core Maths teachers.
A smaller group of teachers who are following AQA 2C met on Wednesday 14 October 2020. The varied discussions were based on requests from teachers, and ranged from how best to introduce and teach standard deviation, and graphs and algebra, and how we can use Core Maths to support students studying BTEC Applied Science to finding great non-textbook resources.
Those who are new to teaching Core Maths also had the chance to get together to discuss how incredibly different the approach to teaching Core Maths is to teaching GCSE or A level Mathematics. Their biggest challenges were how to encourage discussion between students, how to encourage the use of numerical reasoning, and how to choose lesson content that was engaging, provoking, and accessible to students with a wide range of abilities and levels of motivation for the course.
The second round of our Core Maths Online Support Groups begin at the end of November and are open for applications now. We are running sessions for those teaching AQA 2A, AQA 2B, AQA 2C, OCR A, OCR B, and Edexcel. There will also be sessions for those who have just started teaching the course, and for those who work in FE. All groups are free to attend. You can view more information and apply on the AMSP website.