As an A-level mathematics tutor, I notice that a large number of students beginning their A-level studies have remarkably poor algebra skills. This hard core of students (usually boys) are unable to manipulate fractions, confidently rearrange formulae, work with negative numbers or perform the necessary basic skills to progress in the subject. They repeatedly ask the same questions and try to learn methods by rote because they don’t have the skills to do otherwise. Teaching them can be very frustrating because the same issues are revisited again and again and little progress can be made until they learn basic skills which should have been learned at GCSE.
I should add that this is a minority of students but nevertheless a significant minority. If you recognise yourself in this category, do yourself a big favour and learn to walk before you try to run. Mathematics is a hierarchical subject and progression is made on the basis of having mastered prior skills.
Many students going back to school in year 10 and 11 quickly realise that they are not prepared for the demands of the course – especially in mathematics. It is a demanding subject and requires discipline and a lot of practice, practice and more practice. It is essential to get into good habits early. I have some resources to recommend as well as some tips.
Don’t neglect to work on your arithmetic, both mental and written. An inability to work quickly and carefully with the basic operations of arithmetic trip up many students. They get muddled and trip up before they even start. To help, I recommend doing online practice wit a website such as www.arithmetic.zetamac.com.
Review the fundamentals before starting to try examination questions. There is no point trying examination questions until you understand the fundamentals. You will find two kinds of questions in your text book and on websites. There are ‘consolidation’ or ‘confidence-building’ exercises and actual exam type questions. If you find that your school provided text book might lack exercises in some topics. In which case, you will need to supplement your revision with some good online resources. Three of my favourite resources are below.
Desmos Graphing Calculator is a web-based calculator. It is very versatile and can plot functions in Cartesian, polar and parametric form. It is very intuitive. You can switch simply between degrees and radians and it is web based so there is no need to download any software.
Mr Barton GCSE Maths Takaway is a GCSE site of course with a lot of resources arranged conveniently by topic. It is a free resource and very popular.
Exam Solutions offers video instruction (short video clips) which are tailored to specific syllabuses. For those students who really need to see it done in real time rather than learn from the book, this is excellent. Many of my students have said that they like this website.
I tutor the International Baccalaureate Diploma in maths and physics. An excellent WordPress site is IB Physics Notes. It is very detailed and offers detailed revision material on all parts of the syllabus broken down by topic.
I also recommend Hyperphysics because it offers a clickable concept map showing all topics within Physics. It’s great for revision too.
Also thoroughly recommended is the inspirational site Physics Footnotes. This offers a large range of explanatory video clips that bring to life the principles in Physics.
I taught at a school in Kuwait for a year from 2003. This was an interesting experience culturally. I had not lived in a Muslim country before. I taught mathematics up to A-level at Kuwait English School. This is one of the better international schools in the country. Some of my classes were difficult and it was hard work. We started the day at 7 am which was the time we had to be on site. Lessons started at 7.30 and finished by the early afternoon. This had its advantages as we could then have the afternoon free. To be honest I was often so tired that I just went home and slept.
I lived in a block about 10 miles from the school which was where the school rented some basic apartments for staff. I hired a car each term, which worked out surprisingly cheap. I think petrol worked out at about 10 US cents per litre. The driving in Kuwait is an experience not to be missed. The standard of driving is amongst the worst I have seen anywhere in the world. The main technique could be called ‘point and push’. It was very scary. There were horrendous accidents every day on the highway which ran south from Kuwait City.
A famous landmark in Kuwait City
The weekends were on Thursdays and Fridays. We called this the virtual weekend. Saturdays and Sundays were normal days. One weekend, we went out for a drive in the desert to see if we could find the so-called tank graveyard which was where the US military had dumped all the Iraqi tanks and trucks that it had attacked during the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait in the first Gulf war. There were hundreds of tanks in row upon row as well as armoured vehicles, unexploded ordnance and so on. It was blisteringly hot in the desert and I only had a rough idea of the location as we were following directions given to us by other teachers. But we found the site in the end.
View from my window – lovely
This huge amount of scrap metal rusting in the desert is worthless. The reason is that depleted uranium, a byproduct of uranium enrichment, is used in the armour piercing shells that the Americans used. The result is a lot of contaminated metal. It will lie there for many years to come.
At the top of the post, you see pictures that we took on that day. Unbeknown to us, there was a military base nearby and we were soon seen by some soldiers who came over and arrested us. We were questioned in broken English and our cameras were confiscated but not before I had removed my camera’s card. We had to report the next day to the army headquarters to collect these items. We were politely questioned by a well-spoken Kuwaiti officer and given tea.
