How is your Maths A-Level taught/organised for your school?

In my case I go to a pretty terrible school and the maths department are very unorganised. I am in Year 12 and my class are doing Pure Mathematics first (Edexcel). We are only on chapter 4 and we are already 3 weeks in. I know some other schools are doing statistics and mechanics at the same time. I would like to hear from other people especially from people in a good college/sixthform so I can keep up, because if I stick to what my Sixthform teaches me I won't do well, last years results even back me up.

Reply 1

username3525694

My maths departments has one of the best teachers so in terms of quality is good Take the fact we are in the poorest areas. How the lessons are arranged are sooo random . We do edexcel , pure Mathematics . We finished doing 2 topics then we jumped to other topics like differentiation . After every 3 topics we do a big test :smile:

I think they way they do it is good .

Reply 2

y.u.mad.bro?

In our school we have 9 different sets of math. I'm doing Maths and Further Maths in 1 option block so our class is just focusing on maths this year so we can sit the exam in june 2018 and do F.Maths in June 2019. Our exam board is OCR. Till now, we have covered indices, surds, transformations, binomial expansion, differentiation, integration and logarithms. The plan is to finish the core modules by December and start doing mechanics and finish statistics by easter. However, other sets who are doing just maths or maths and f. maths have not even finished surds and indices yet. So it really depends honestly. Right now, it is far too early to say whether you are going slow or not. I can tell you the plan we follow every week and keep you updated :wink:

so you can work on your own and prepare yourself if you would like. Otherwise, just follow what you are being taught and make sure that you understand the topic fully so when you are given any question, you can do it.

Reply 3

zetamcfc

Original post by tony654

For Edexcel there are 19 topics (Do topics relate to chapters?) in total (Pure and Applied) to be done over 2 years. Say you have 30 weeks of lessons each year. Then you have more than 3 weeks worth of lessons on each topic which should be plenty having looked at the specification. So if 3 chapters is one topic then you should be ok.

Reply 4

tony654

Original post by y.u.mad.bro?

Thank you for your response :smile:

Your maths department is definatley A LOT more organised than mine, the fact you have sets when my school doesn't. If you could keep me updated that would be a great help so I can make sure I am staying on top of things. Thanks!

Reply 5

usfbullz

We have applied modules (stats) once a week and core twice a week. They're double period lessons.

We don't even start Mechanics until the end of January.....

Reply 6

y.u.mad.bro?

Original post by tony654

Thank you for your response :smile:

Will do. Also, do message me and remind me because I do forget a lot of things xD

Reply 7

hellomellow

Original post by tony654

At my school we have two different teachers. One teaches us pure mathematics whilst the other teacher is doing stats. So they are treated like different subjects in a way as in we have two separate exercise books.

We have stats once a week and core twice a week. I don't think we will do mechanics anytime soon.