Maths Tutor Beverley

How good are you at %'s?

% calculations can be difficult to master. By following a carefully designed bespoke programme to identify and correct any misunderstandings, Qs such as these can be confidently tackled :

1. Increase £1450 by 8%

2. Decrease a mass of 240g by 15%

3. If the price of a food item increases from £1.29 to £1.79, what is the % increase?

4. If the price of a holiday increases to £900 after a 20% increase. What was the original price?

Answers : £15.66, 204g, 38.8%, £750.

How good is your algebra?

Many students benefit from boosting their confidence and skills in algebra. For example, solving equations.

From simple examples such as

1. x + 7 = 13
2. 4x + 7 = 3

to more complex examples such as these :

3. x - 5 = -19
4. 2x = 8
3
5. x ( x - 1 ) = 12

I take students, at the pace they can follow, in small sequential steps to build confidence and skills in those areas they need support.

Ans : 6, -1, -14, 12, -3 and 4.

I have 5 places available for the 2024/25 season. Once again, I am mainly preparing students in their final year of GCSE. I charge £30 per session (an hour), and prefer to use Teams for the sessions. Please contact me on Messenger, or text, for further details or if you just want to discuss it without any obligation.

I have a few places available for GCSE tuition for the 2022 - 2023 academic year. I will be starting sessions later in October through to the exam season in May. I can provide individually tailored sessions to suit the needs of different students. For the last 2 years I have provided online sessions via Zoom. This has proved popular with parents and students. I charge £30 per hour. You can leave a voicemail or text message on my mobile (07702755268) or use Messenger to contact me initially.

As we enter the final two weeks of the 2022 GCSE examination season, I would like to wish all my students the very best of luck.
Paper 2 tomorrow and the final paper a week today.
Remember your calculators, ensure they are in DEG or D mode. Revise and remember formulae for areas and volumes of shapes, compound interest, trig ratios and pythagoras' theorem.
Best wishes

June 22nd 2020 The Government announces catch-up for all?

Fridays announcement from Gavin Williamson (Sec. State Ed.) of £1Bn to schools to support catch-up is very welcome. It is a large amount of money but when considered against a school age population of over 8 million children (7.995m in 2018) this amounts to only £125 per student or less than one day’s 1-2-1 time with a teacher.

2020 GCSE results are due on Thursday 20th August.

Acceptance on post-16 courses are frequently conditional upon these results. School Sixth Forms and 6th Form Colleges who have traditionally had to guide students through the rigorous transition from GCSE courses to A and AS level, will have the additional problem of students who have had a disrupted Y11 education and in some cases, little face to face teaching for the six months March to September.

For students hoping to embark upon an AS / A level Mathematics course in September this will present significant barriers to good progress. The new A level introduced in September 2017 has widely been recognised as being more challenging than the course it replaced. Schools and colleges will have to consider additional support either over the summer months or throughout the Autumn term and beyond. However, in my experience conscientious students taking on a full post 16 course have little time to attend or quite frankly cope with additional learning demands. The best course of action to start some preparation of the A level courses now.

I suggest students in this position thoroughly revise the following GCSE topics, and if time permits over the summer self study the following bridge topics to help cope with the first term topics and rigour.

GCSE Topics to revise for AS / A level Maths courses

• Ratio and proportion
• Functions
• % - Compound interest, depreciation, % change, reverse %s
• Indices, surds
• Algebra – form and solve equations, change subject formula, rearrange formula
• Quadratics – factorise, solving, forming, graphs of, complete square, inequalities
• Pythagoras, cones and spheres, volume prisms
• Eq of line, parallel and perpendicular lines, equations of tangents
• Sine rule, cosine rule, area triangle
• Velocity time graph, acceleration, constant speed
• Rates of change – density, pressure, speed
• Vectors
• Scatter diagrams, cumulative frequency, box plots, histograms

Bridge Units to revise for AS / A level Maths courses

• Trigonometry - graphs of the sine, cosine, tangent functions, solve simple trigonometric equations for given ranges.
• The discriminant
• Sketching polynomials
• Solving disguised quadratics
• Learn and apply laws of indices

Schools should be providing some or all these resources on their learning platforms, additionally good learning resources can be found at:

BBC bitesize https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/z38pycw
UK Gov https://classroom.thenational.academy/
YouTube contains many good teaching resources by topic

I am currently offering GCSE and AS /A level preparation private tuition for any students who need tailored support. I will be able to offer support throughout the summer period and into the Autumn term.

Please contact me using either Facebook messenger or using my contact details. Please do not leave a message on the WordPress website.

Online Classroom - Oak National Academy Welcome to the online classroom. Here you can access all of our lessons. Either you can follow a set plan of lessons across a range of subjects, or you can access particular lessons in certain subjects

Students collected their 2019 GCSE results on Thursday 22nd August. This is the 3rd year that Maths grades have been published as numbers. Now most subjects are reported in this way and in 2020 all subjects will be reported using the 9 to 1 grades. The first table below shows what the new levels mean.

Nationally approximately 70% of grades awarded across all subjects are 4+. In Maths the figure is 71.5%. The second table below shows the breakdown in grades for the last three years.

Having taught GCSE (and also GCE and CSE) for almost forty years, I can confirm that the qualification now has more rigour, questions are frequently contextualised and the shift to taking three papers at one sitting at the end of the course (eliminating the ability to take modules along the way and resit them if necessary) have all contributed to an increase in the difficulty for all students.

Students collected their 2019 GCSE results on Thursday 22nd August. This is the 3rd year that Maths grades have been published as levels. Now most subjects are reported in this way and in 2020 all subjects will be reported using the 9 to 1 grades. The table below shows what the new levels mean.

Nationally approximately 70% of grades awarded across all subjects are 4+. In Maths the figure is 71.5%. The table below shows the breakdown in grades for the last three years.

Having taught GCSE (and also GCE and CSE) for almost forty years, I can confirm that the qualification now has more rigour, questions are frequently contextualised and the shift to taking three papers at one sitting at the end of the course (eliminating the ability to take modules along the way and resit them if necessary) have all contributed to an increase in the difficulty for all students.

August 15th 2019. A level results are out this week. The new Maths A levels was introduced for first teaching in September 2017.

Following a review of A levels the government decided to review and implement all A levels over the period 2015-2017.

The qualification had attracted much criticism due to grade inflation, large proportion of students achieving the highest grades.

The changes designed to tackle these issues were to:

• Remove all coursework
• End the use of modules and the ability to resit
• Insist all examinations being scheduled at the end of the course
• Content made more rigorous
• Introduce a new A* grade

Having taught the Pure Maths elements in the new specification for two years now I can confirm that rigour has been increased considerably. I was not surprised to see grade boundaries fall to ensure students were not unfairly penalised by these changes.

Big week for 16 year olds. They'll be getting their PPE (Pre Public Exams - we called them Mocks) results this week.
If Maths grades are lower than expected I can help boost the outcomes before they sit the real thing in May.
View my webpage for more details.