April 2025 Maths and Statistics Update
Dear Colleagues,
21 April - Entry deadline for Summer 2025 series
Please note that amendment fees and high late entry fees will apply from 22 April.
28 April - Teaching The Fundamentals Functional Skills Maths Level 1
30 April - Level 2 Extended Maths Certificate: Exam Preparation and Revision*
* This event was originally scheduled for 3 April and has been re-scheduled to 30 April. Delegates who have already registered will receive an email notification with the updated date.
Our Exam Key Messages and Information resources are PowerPoint presentations that you can use with your students as part of their exam preparation in the final run up to the exams.
Available for Foundation and Higher tier.
Each presentation covers:
- key points from the 2024 examiner reports and exemplar responses
- essential equipment and calculator skills
- formulae
- examiner top tips and command words
- revision checklists
You can find these presentations under the Revision Support cabinet of the Maths Emporium using the link below.
A reminder that you can find a collection of our most popular revision resources in my March Update and within the Guides section of the GCSE Maths Facebook group.
GCSE Maths / GCSE Statistics crossover papers
Check out our new GCSE Maths / GCSE Statistics crossover papers.
These papers are a collection of Summer 2024 GCSE Maths questions that cover content also on the GCSE Statistics course and are a valuable source of additional practice for GCSE Statistics.
Available for both foundation and higher tiers.
GCSE Statistics: General Revision Guidance and Extended Answers
In this event which took place on 26 March, our credible specialist Mel Muldowney from JustMaths shared how you can use Pearson resources more effectively in the lead up to the Summer exams and gave her top tips for students when approaching exam questions that require an extended answer.
The recording and slides for this session will be uploaded to the GCSE Statistics CPD cabinet.
Revision Checklist and Practice Papers
Make sure your students are fully prepared with our Revision Checklist.
This checklist lists all topic areas and skills that students need to know and is a handy resource to help students in managing their revision.
We have released 14 revision practice papers which cover the 10 topic areas in our scheme of work.
These papers are split into two sections, a GCSE Maths section focusing on harder questions from the 1MA1 specification and a section with EMC style questions to practice.
This will allow students to revise these topics for both GCSE Maths and EMC simultaneously.
Upcoming training event
Level 2 Extended Maths Certificate: Exam Preparation and Revision
30 April 2025, 16:00 - 17:00 GMT
In this session, Nicola Woodford-Smith will share tips on preparing your students for the first examination series of this brand new qualification. Highlights will include using key resources to help support revision including some new materials.
Please note this event was originally scheduled for 3 April and has been re-scheduled to 30 April. Delegates will receive an email notification notifying them of the updated date.
Marking Guidance FAQs and Calculator Instructions Guidance
We have updated our Marking Guidance FAQs and Calculator Guidance documents to include some more relevant exemplars.
You can access these key documents using the links below.
Updates to our Accessibility Improvements
After publishing the guide to our question paper improvements in 2020, we have continued to make improvements and put principles into place to ensure our exams are more accessible and that students have an improved exam experience.
Our latest report provides a comprehensive overview of the impact of these improvements using examples from the Summer 2023 and Summer 2024 A level Mathematics question papers and making comparisons to Summer 2019, helping us to demonstrate how the changes have been effective in improving student experience.
New training videos
Our credible specialist Dr Ali Everett has recorded two additional videos on effective exam preparation for the topics of ‘Hypothesis Testing’ and ‘Effect Size’.
Updated Scheme of Work
The Pearson Edexcel two-year Scheme of Work for Level 3 Advanced GCE in Statistics (9ST0) has been through a detailed review by members of the examining team who have added extra detail to the already comprehensive guidance.
Key changes include the addition of Unit 26 (Statistical Project). Unit 17 (Further Probability Theory) has been expanded to include separate sub-units for Bayes' Theorem, Hypogeometric Tree Diagrams and Conditional Probability Distributions.
In addition, we have added more detailed guidance to each unit including some new and updated exemplars. You will also see improvements to format and layout, such as exemplar questions with solutions now in an 'exemplar' environment and differentiated from questions with no solutions.
We hope that you find these updates helpful. Let us know if you have any feedback or suggestions for future revisions.
You can find the updated Scheme of Work within Teaching and Learning Materials using the link below.
To support your student entering for the first series of the Modular International GCSE Maths A exams, we have released a set of 27 Revision Papers.
These provide valuable question practice by topic and covering all content of Units 1 and 2 for both Foundation and Higher tiers. We have also created Printer Friendly versions, with the answer spaces removed, if you prefer that format.
On Monday 31st March we will be releasing exemplified Student Revision Checklists for the course, linked to the Revision Papers for further practice. These materials can be accessed by teachers and students and are available to download under "Assessment Support".
The Revision Checklists and Revision Papers can be used by students following the linear Maths A course as the overall content is exactly the same.
Following on from our announcement, last month, about the publication of the new Sample Assessment Materials for International GCSE Maths A (Modular) Higher Tier, we are now delighted to announce the publication of the Extra Sample Assessment Materials for the Foundation Tier.These materials can be accessed under "Specimen paper and mark scheme" and are padlocked, allowing teachers to use these as mocks with their students.
All resources can be accessed via Teaching and Learning Materials using the link below.
Upcoming training events
We have a range of upcoming training events to support schools in delivering Functional Skills Maths:
28 April - Teaching The Fundamentals Functional Skills Maths Level 1
2 May - Teaching The Fundamentals Functional Skills Maths Level 2
9 May - Standardising Entry Level Functional Skills Maths
With the revision season well under way we'd like to share our student guide with top tips on preparing for exams, where to find further support and what happens once exams end.
Download the guide and pass it on to your students.
Ofqual have provided information for students about arrangements for regulated qualifications.
This explains what your students need to know before, during and after exams and assessments.
The Joint Council for Qualifications has published their key dates document for the June 2025 exam cycle.
Two dates have been set aside as contingency in the event of national or significant local disruption to exams in the UK:
11 June – afternoon session
25 June – full day
The Pearson #ResitRethink focuses on freeing thousands of post-16 learners from a cycle of GCSE English and maths resit failure and fatigue.
Lastly, make sure you're following us on socials to keep up to date with the latest news about our qualifications and services 👇
Best regards
Vicky Wood
Subject Advisor for Maths and Statistics (UK)
Subject advisor
Vicky Wood
Mathematics and Statistics - UK centres
