: Supporting students with GCSE maths at post-16. Blog 2 – How to Design a course based around consistency and student data. Supporting students with GCSE maths

In my last blog, I spoke about the importance of building positive relationships with students in GCSE Maths resit classes. In this blog, I build on those ideas by exploring how those relationships can inform course design, helping us create the conditions for the best possible outcomes for our students, both academically and personally.

Through conversations with students over many years about their experiences of learning mathematics, I have found that one issue arises more than any other: consistency. This applies to both lesson structure and the way topics are taught, with students often becoming unsure about the most effective method for answering a question. As a result, they can develop misconceptions, merging different methods together and becoming less confident in their mathematical thinking. For me, this is why consistency must be deliberately built into the curriculum.

Consistency is key – The lesson structure

Lessons should be consistent, with students knowing what to expect. This often comes down to structure. The EEF’s work on cognitive science highlights that consistent classroom routines can reduce unnecessary cognitive load, allowing students to devote more of their working memory to learning new mathematical concepts rather than working out what they are expected to do next. Similarly, the EEF’s Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning guidance emphasises the value of establishing predictable routines so that students can focus on thinking deeply about the task itself. .

Each lesson should therefore have a clear and accessible starting point. I begin every lesson with 10 questions on the board and give students 10 minutes to answer them in their books. There are always five questions that all students can answer, three that most students can answer and two that provide an additional challenge. Students then mark their own work and we address any misconceptions immediately.

Our lessons then move into a second phase: Key Maths Skills. Here, students complete a set of questions requiring the use of mathematical equipment. These tasks are designed to be accessible to all students and completed by everyone, with a consistent method modelled each time.

Next, we move into the main teaching phase. Using an I do, we do, you do approach, I model worked examples before students move on to independent or collaborative practice. Finally, we finish with exam-style or contextualised questions so that students can apply what they have learned in a format that mirrors assessment.

This predictable lesson structure means students enter the classroom knowing exactly what to expect. Rather than using valuable mental effort to navigate changing routines, they can concentrate on developing their mathematical understanding and refining the strategies they need to succeed.

Those tricky topics like simultaneous equations often feel overwhelming for many students. Spending lesson after lesson on these topics often has little impact on students’ ability to answer exam questions confidently.

Instead, I prefer to teach the topic thoroughly in one lesson, ensuring students understand the process through clear modelling and guided practice. After that, the topic becomes a regular feature of our lesson starters. Every starter task includes a simultaneous equations question and, over time, the frequency is gradually reduced as students become more secure. This approach reflects evidence from the EEF’s cognitive science review, which highlights the value of retrieval practice and spaced practice in strengthening long-term memory. Rather than revisiting a topic intensively and then moving on, students repeatedly retrieve and apply the knowledge over time until it becomes increasingly automatic.

The same principle applies to other topics that students often find difficult because of the context rather than the mathematics itself.

Take speed, distance and time as an example. There is a temptation to introduce the formula triangle straight away. Whilst this can help some students remember a calculation, it can also encourage them to follow a procedure without understanding what the mathematics represents. Instead, I begin by exploring the concept itself. What does ​‘speed’ actually mean? How do we experience speed in everyday life? Once students understand the relationship between speed, distance and time, the calculations begin to make much more sense. The formula then becomes something that supports understanding, rather than replacing it.

By combining explicit teaching with regular retrieval and a focus on conceptual understanding, students are more likely to retain what they have learned and apply it successfully when they encounter these topics again in the exam.

One of the most important things to remember about a gcse resit course is that it is not a revision course. All too often this gets forgotten and gaps in knowledge are not addressed. The resit needs to be treated as a full course, we must teach the majority of the content. The biggest barrier to success is time, the GCSE course is built to be delivered over at least 2 years with expected progress between years of less than 1 grade. We need to therefore pick the correct topics to work on and revise in order to maximise achievement.

In my previous blog, I discussed the importance of helping students feel comfortable and confident with mathematics. Careful course design is a key part of achieving this. When planning our curriculum, I consider three questions. 

• Is it relevant to the students? These are the topics that students are likely to encounter in everyday life, future study or employment. This is where we will go into the most detailed teaching , Around 70% of our lessons are focussed here.
• Do they know this already? The topics that they are consistently getting right and just need to practice. We identify these areas early through Question Level Analysis (QLA) from baseline assessments and revisit the data following the November examination series. These topics become the focus of homework, independent practice and retrieval activities, allowing valuable lesson time to be used elsewhere. We first need to diagnose what these topics are and do this early in the year using QLAs from assessments and in January we reassess using data from the November exam series. Up to 10 % of lessons would cover content from this.
• Is it worth the time? Will the time spent teaching this topic be worth the marks they ultimately come out with.Instead, we teach them explicitly once before returning to them regularly through low-stakes retrieval activities, where success is recognised and confidence is built. We will spend around 20% of lesson time focused on topics like this.

In each of these cases the way we address the topic will be different, however we must cover all topics to some extent to allow for some familiarity with the content and avoid the panic of seeing the unknown in the exam.

Though all cohorts are different and have varying targets, we do find that the topic structures don’t change too much from year to year and therefore we can build a consistent scheme, this may change slightly each January after we receive November results. This consistency benefits both teachers and students, ensuring that teaching remains focused, evidence-informed and responsive to the needs of each cohort.

Students have a tendency to think that completing all past papers will help them to revise for the exam. Instead, I encourage them to slow down.

• Complete one paper to the best of your ability, mark it carefully, identify the topics that caused difficulty, and then spend the time relearning those topics before attempting another paper. Revision should be purposeful, not just repetitive.
• Use QLAs to track homeworks and class papers to identify areas where individuals are struggling. Most papers have shadow papers and therefore students have an opportunity to retry a question that is slightly different than the one before after they have attempted to relearn the topic, these can easily be found in the shadow papers for most exam boards.
• Ensure that homework is not restricted to past papers, They need to be practicing the skills they are learning in the lessons and skills they may have forgotten along the way. Include some topic based questions and a skills check of some kind within homeworks each week.
  
  
  Ultimately building a consistent and complete course the students will feel more comfortable in the subject and also make progress towards both their personal and academic goals. By structuring the course in this way, we give more students the opportunity to overcome barriers, experience success and, perhaps most importantly, develop a more positive view of mathematics.