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All About Maths

GCSE Mathematics

(8300)

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Get started with our GCSE Maths resources

Before you start, please make sure you are familiar with the GCSE Mathematics (8300) specification.

We have a suite of resources to support you in planning, teaching and assessing this qualification.

Search all GCSE Maths resources

For further teaching support, you can see the entire resource collection for GCSE Mathematics in our All About Maths library.

Planning resources - GCSE Maths

Our GCSE Maths handy links provide all our resources in one place. The planning resources can be found in the links below.

Customisable route maps

Plan your teaching of the course with our interactive, customisable route maps. These contain links to supporting resources such as lesson plans, activities, worksheets and homework sheets for Foundation tier and Higher tier.

Route maps are available for teaching both tiers over two or three years, as well as a one-year route map specifically tailored for resit students.

You’re now able to recreate your route maps in our new All About Maths platform. We’ve updated how they look, and we’re continuing to make improvements with more features to come.

We value your feedback so please let us know what you think.

We also have original PowerPoint Route maps Foundation tier and Higher tier available for use.

Teaching resources

Comprehensive step-by-step advice, written by senior examiners, on what your students should be able to do, including example exam questions.

Teaching guidance

The teaching guidance is written by senior examiners and provides comprehensive guidance on each topic within the specification, including example questions.

KS3-4 Bridging the gap

This set of resources was originally designed to support teaching and learning for the cohorts of students who studied the 2007 Key Stage 3 Programme of Study and were preparing for the then new Mathematics GCSE (8300).

As some aspects of these topics are relatively new to the GCSE, we think these resources are still useful to prepare students.

Goal-free problems

Goal-free problems (sometimes called “no goal” problems) encourage students to work out anything they can about a question. Rather than asking pupils to find a particular piece of information from a situation, students are instead instructed to generate multiple pieces of information. Working in this way encourages students to look closely at all the information presented to them and can help them pick up method marks in an exam.

Each booklet is accompanied by teacher notes. These give suggestions on how students might tackle each question and at what stage they could be used in revision.

Sample papers and mark schemes

We have produced the following resources for teachers to provide more support in preparing your classroom for success.

Specimen and Practice Papers

You can access our specimen and practice papers below:

Specimen Papers (added June 2015)
Practice Papers

Problem Solving and Reasoning

The current GCSE has a greater focus on both Problem Solving (AO3) and Reasoning (AO2). We have produced a guidance to assist teachers with their understanding of the requirements for each strand of AO2 and AO3.

Shadow papers

Our GCSE Maths shadow papers are based on real AQA exam questions and have been produced by assessment experts. Use the links on the menu/below to see the shadow papers for each individual exam series.

For each question across the six papers, aspects such as the numbers have been changed but the demand-level, content covered and assessment objective being tested remain the same.

Support for mock exams

We provide mock exam analysers to help you evaluate students' performance in mock exams. A marking guidance document is also available to give you greater understanding of how to apply an AQA mark scheme.

AQA GCSE Maths papers are copyrighted to AQA and are held on Centre Services and All About Maths.

They are for use by teachers only and can be shared with students within an AQA registered centre, in the classroom or on an internal moodle/VLE system.

They may not be passed outside of your school or college in any format including sharing on a public facing website (including school websites), social media site or video sharing site.

Post-16 GCSE resit resources

The collection of resources is designed to help you prepare to teach our GCSE Maths to post-16 resit students. They'll help you to reinforce and develop GCSE Maths skills across all curriculum areas.

Although originally designed with post-16 teaching in mind, these resources can still be useful in preparing any students for GCSE Maths.

Basic skills questions

We have sets of basic skills questions, put together by further education specialist Julia Smith, to help you identify where there are gaps in students' knowledge.

These questions measure students’ ability with nine basic maths skills:

addition
subtraction
multiplication
division
fractions
decimals
percentages
scale
ratio.

By identifying the skills that students struggle with, you address them early in the course. Once the basics are in place, progress can be made.

Fundamental knowledge questions

We have produced a set of fundamental knowledge questions, from a brief put together by further education specialist Julia Smith, to help you identify where there are gaps in students' knowledge.

At post-16, although a student has achieved a grade 1, 2 or 3 at GCSE already, they may still have some knowledge gaps which are preventing them from accessing parts of the curriculum. This can hinder progress in more advanced areas.

These questions measure students’ knowledge in 8 fundamental knowledge areas: