I got shown this by a colleague so thought I would PowerPoint it; there are essentially a few versions of the same thing: Minimally labelled etc - for a strong set of mathematicians All angles marked The side or angle you need to find next is highlighted I will use this to introduce the addition formulae. There may well be other/better versions out there so I am sorry if I have wasted your time.

Casey is doing the AQA Further Maths Level 2 Certificate course; this is the homework for Chapter 1 involving Pascal’s Triangle, product rule for counting, solving equations (involving fractions) and algebraic percentage relationships. These are designed for students to discuss how to solve the problems given and appraise “Casey” regarding their understanding; I find these to be good at deepening understanding.

Casey is working through the AQA Further Maths Level 2 Certificate and has reached the Calculus chapter; however, Casey requires the help of your class. Spot the mistakes, correct them and explain where Casey has gone wrong. These work well for discussions in class.

There are four trees where students can work from bottom to top, choosing an appropriately challenging start point if they wish. This is “introduction to algebra” stuff, I will do expanding and factorising on a separate file but these could offer nice starters or plenaries. It contains adding/subtracting as well as multiplying variables and collecting like terms.

Includes one and two brackets for expanding, including simplifying as well. I wanted to have 8 trees in total so also put in a completing the square tree. Each tree has 3 or 4 questions of increasing difficulty; students choose their start and finish which should allow you to judge where to pitch your teaching; or you could just use it however you like.

Answer the questions, which get progressively more difficult, involving one or more of the trigonometric rules to reveal an anagram for the punchline of a joke. My classes seem to like these, the cheesier the joke, the better and given that this is an anagram they cannot guess the order of the letters for the answer.

Find the missing coordinates on the functions to reveal the punchline to a joke. Most involve linear functions but there are others towards the end; the challenge increases as the questions progress. Useful as a starter, plenary or main task and students seem to enjoy finding the punchlines.

Essentially students must use y=mx+c to answer questions then reveal the punchline to a joke. There is a grid and five lines from which to refer to, but this includes parallel and perpendicular lines and their equations as well.

Another one of the “answer the questions, reveal the joke” classics (the joke is a cracker by the way). This is an attempt to force students to solve equations rather than try numbers as I am seeing some of this with some students.

Designed for the AQA Further Maths Level 2 Certificate course but could be used at A Level. Answer the questions, reveal the joke, you know the drill…

Designed for the AQA Further Maths Level 2 Certificate course, answer the questions, reveal the joke. This is essentially multiplying matrices.

The usual "do the Maths, find the punchline) thing; find where the coordinates have moved to after the transformation. I particularly like this joke, by the way.

Four spiders which are easiest at 12 o’clock then get harder clockwise; they also allow for debate about what function fits the coordinates given. These are designed to stop students just following a set of rules and to get them thinking; I hope it works!

Formula, values, workings and answer columns; stuff is left blank, students fill in the blanks. It does what it says on the tin.

Five columns: data (in order), mean, median, mode, range. Some are blank; work out what the blanks need to be.

Three headings: centre/radius or diagram, workings, equation. There are blanks in some parts of the table which students an fill on, working forwards and backwards.

This does what it says on the tin regarding domain and range. Answer the questions to find the punchline to what is a terrific joke, even if i do say so myself. Ideal for an online activity or in school/homework.

Ten “trees” of increasing difficulty, each with three or four questions also of increasing difficulty. Answers are provided on separate slides and this is designed to allow students to choose their start (and end?) point or to be used as a plenary in each case.

This came about after a colleague of mine (a Spurs fan) was moaning about a VAR decision that prevented Spurs from winning a Champions League match. Another colleague (a Brighton fan this time) suggested we check the errors in measurement and this was born. It is a bit of an experiment and I am aware that error is built in to the systems but I thought it was a nice practical use of something we cover in GCSE Maths. There are four scenarios: one tennis, two cricket and one football; questions are quite wordy but need to be to explain the laws of the sports in question.

Eight trees that students can climb based on their knowledge of indices. The idea is to continually ramp up the difficulty and allow students to choose their start point. They start from the most basic writing using powers, laws of indices up to simplifying using fractional and negative indices.