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Total Maths Newsletter

Hello Colleague

We hope all is well for you this term and you’re looking forward to a good half-term break. 😊

The entries deadline for the summer 2025 exams is next Friday, 21 February. Please ensure your exams officer has made your entries by then.

Our provisional exam timetables for summer 2026 are now available for you to view. These are available so that you have an opportunity to raise any concerns before the final timetables are decided and published. They can be viewed on our key dates and timetables webpage. The deadline for sending feedback to us is Friday 21 March.

If you’d like to become part of our assessor team, we currently have a few roles available. We're now recruiting for two Candidate Proxy roles, one for AS Maths A H230/02: Pure Mathematics and Mechanics plus one for A Level Further Maths B (MEI) Y435: Extra Pure. More information and details on how to apply are available from our Assessment Specialists Recruitment site. The deadline is next Sunday, 23 February.

Additionally, we’re also recruiting Examiners for AS / A Level Maths A and AS / A Level Further Maths B (MEI) to mark papers this summer.

As always, if you have any queries or we can give you any further support, please get in contact with us. Our role is to support you as you deliver our qualifications.

Neil, Amy, Steven, Ruth and Caroline - your OCR Maths Subject Advisors 

maths@ocr.org.uk
@OCR_Maths
01223 553998
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Upcoming maths Teacher Networks
Teachers networking

We have several Teacher Networks coming up throughout this term and into next term. These are completely free to attend and are set up to bring maths teachers together, so we can share relevant updates, answer your questions, discuss best practice and more. You can book your place now.
  • Tuesday 4 March – GCSE (9-1) Maths (face to face at Willowfield School, London) – We’ll focus on tiering decisions, content differences across tiers and resources to assist you with tiering.
  • Thursday 6 March – Level 3 FSMQ: Additional Mathematics (online) – We’ll give an overview of the 2025 exam structure and discuss revision activities.
  • Wednesday 12 March – A Level Maths & Further Maths (online) – We’ll share revision activities and discuss applying mark schemes to alternative solution methods.
  • Tuesday 18 March – GCSE (9-1) Maths (online) – We’ll focus on tiering decisions, content differences across tiers and resources to assist you with tiering.
  • Tuesday 29 April – A Level Maths, Further Maths & Core Maths (face to face at Redland Green School, Bristol) – We’ll look at how to approach topics shared between Core Maths and the A Level statistics content, as well as revision activities to use with students.

Whether you’re already teaching a qualification or just interested in learning more, you’re very welcome to attend. We look forward to seeing you there. 😊

If you’re interested in running a future face-to-face network at your school, please let us know.

Teacher Networks
Join our Recollective panel – we’d love to hear your thoughts!

If you teach any maths qualifications, then we’d love to hear your insights and feedback. Please join Recollective, our insight panel, to let us know your views on the current qualifications and support.

Current and recent surveys have focussed on how A Level Maths resources such as candidate exemplars and model solutions can help teachers, plus the suitability of the current GCSE (9-1) Maths content and assessment structure for students.
Teachers in a room talking

You don't have to teach our maths qualifications to join, we're looking for a broad range of views from those who would like to shape the future of maths qualifications and support.

Sign up to Recollective
Professional development for 2025
Teacher talking

Below you’ll find dates of our professional development courses coming up in the next month.

Head over to our maths professional development webpage for more information and to book your place.
  • Wednesday 19 March - Enhance your Teaching: Exploring problem-solving in GCSE (9-1) Maths.
  • Wednesday 26 March - Developing problem-solving skills in pure maths for A Level Mathematics A and A Level Mathematics B (MEI).

Materials from past courses are available to you to download from Teach Cambridge. Select your qualification, then in the menu go to ‘Training’, then ‘Past training events’.

Maths professional development
Updated Maths B (MEI) and Further Maths B (MEI) sample assessment materials

As part of our regular review of assessment materials, we've updated our sample assessment material for the below qualifications:

  • H630 - AS Level Mathematics B (MEI)
  • H640 - A Level Mathematics B (MEI)
  • H635 - AS Level Further Mathematics B (MEI)
  • H645 - A Level Further Mathematics B (MEI).
teachers talking

This is to reflect the changes we’re making to our live assessment materials for the summer 2025 series onwards.

There's no change to the assessment structure or question papers. The amends made are to the mark schemes, solely to simplify the annotations used on the scripts when marking. Our guidance to answering questions for these assessments has not changed.

The updated sample assessment materials can be downloaded from Teach Cambridge, as well as the public webpages for AS/A Level Maths B (MEI) and AS/A Level Further Maths B (MEI).

Please see the subject updates for AS/A Level Maths B (MEI) and AS/A Level Further Maths B (MEI) for more information, as well as links to resources supporting related amends to marks in our practice papers.

Maths subject updates
Pre-release materials for Core Maths
Student and teacher in lesson

Pre-release materials for Core Maths A (H868) and Core Maths B (H869) summer 2025 exams will be published on Teach Cambridge on Saturday 15 March.

To help support you, the Advanced Maths Support Programme (AMSP) are running online discussion meetings on the pre-release materials for OCR Core Maths A & B, on Thursday 27 March (14:00 - 16:00) and Tuesday 1 April (16:00 - 18:00). Book your place now.

Teach Cambridge
Upcoming conferences

We’ll be at several conferences across the country in the coming weeks…

On Friday 7 March we’ll be at the Kent and Medway Maths Hub ‘United Through Numbers’ Conference, celebrating 10 years of the Maths Hubs Programme. We’ll be on hand to discuss your queries and there’ll be copies of our specifications and more to take away.
Student in a maths lesson

On Saturday 15 March we’ll be at the La Salle Maths #MathsConf37, held at Newfield Secondary School in Sheffield. Come and visit us on the stand to discuss maths, ask questions, pick up a copy of any of our specifications and more.

From Monday 14 April to Wednesday 16 April we’ll be at the Joint Conference Of Mathematics Subject Associations ‘Future Proofing The Curriculum' conference in Loughborough. We’re also running two sessions in the programme. Neil will deliver a session on GCSE (9-1) Maths student performance on Monday in session D, while Steven will deliver a session on A Level Maths student performance on Tuesday in session G.

We look forward to seeing you soon. 😊
Join the accessibility discussion at the upcoming SecED webinar!
Teacher in a webinar making notes

Making maths accessible: Teaching, curriculum and examination 5 March 2025

SecEd has teamed up with us and GCSE maths teachers to deliver a webinar, that discusses accessibility in GCSE Maths study and examination – considering how you can ensure that all students can access the curriculum and achieve their potential in this vital subject. 

The webinar discussion will consider common barriers to GCSE Maths and ask what schools can do to identify these barriers and support learners.

Register for SecEd webinar

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