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Preparation for Paper 1 presentation shared by Andrew Blackett

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Preparation for Paper 1 presentation shared by Andrew Blackett

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Preparation for 2019 P1 motorway Andrew Blackett

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Paper 2 pre-release questions shared by Andrew Blackett

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Paper 2 pre-release questions shared by Andrew Blackett

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P2 2019 prelim practice questions final Andrew Blackett

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Paper 1 pre-release questions shared by Andrew Blackett

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Paper 1 pre-release questions shared by Andrew Blackett

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P1 Pre Release practice questions 2019 Andrew Blackett

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Presentation for Paper 1 shared by Andrew Blackett

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Presentation for Paper 1 shared by Andrew Blackett

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2019 P1 motorway key skills Andrew Blackett

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Mock for Paper 2A shared by Jane Barnett

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Mock for Paper 2A shared by Jane Barnett

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Paper 1 2017 reordered according to student success in exam shared by Kevin Higginson

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Paper 1 2017 reordered according to student success in exam shared by Kevin Higginson

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Paper 1 reordered by student success 2017

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Paper 1 2016 reordered according to student success in exam shared by Kevin Higginson

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Paper 1 2016 reordered according to student success in exam shared by Kevin Higginson

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Paper 1 reordered by student success 2016

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Questions shared by Hannah Lees (has answers)

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Questions shared by Hannah Lees (has answers)

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Spreadsheet of questions that have been shared via google form.

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Spreadsheet of questions that have been shared via google form.

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A possible way to support students with Tax and NI questions shared by Jon Cox @jc_centurian

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Fermi Facts shared by East Midlands East Maths Hub

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Fermi Facts shared by East Midlands East Maths Hub

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Powerpoint with questions for Critical Analysis shared by East Midlands East Maths Hub

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Powerpoint with questions for Critical Analysis shared by East Midlands East Maths Hub

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Powerpoint with questions for motorways shared by East Midlands East Maths Hub

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Powerpoint with questions for motorways shared by East Midlands East Maths Hub

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Powerpoint with questions for Paper 1 shared by East Midlands East Maths Hub

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Powerpoint with questions for Paper 1 shared by East Midlands East Maths Hub

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More hard shoulders are set to be taken away as 372 more miles of smart motorways are set to be rolled out across parts of the UK.

Further stretches near Leeds and Sheffield are set to turn 'smart', as well as the M62 linking Manchester and Leeds. The length of the M1 from London to Leeds and the M6 between Manchester and Birmingham are also set to be continuous smart motorways.

Smart motorways aim to improve congestion by monitoring traffic more closely, as well as having variable speed limits, which appear on gantries. To create a fourth lane of motorway, the hard shoulder is removed. On some stretches, it still exists as a 'dynamic hard shoulder', which is where it can be opened to improve traffic flow.

The roads also use a system that can help to shut off lanes (marked using a red 'X' overhead) if there is ever a stationary vehicle stranded on the motorway, or debris, for example.

Currently, there are 416 miles of smart motorways across the UK, although this is set to increase to 788 by 2025, according to Jim O'Sullivan, chief executive of Highways England, who announced the further rollout in an interview with The Sunday Times.

O'Sullivan also said that the name is set to change to 'digital roads'. These will also see a number of changes take place on them - including more emergency lay-bys and an increase of 50mph to 60mph during stretches where roadworks are taking place.

He told The Sunday Times: "You will not get a car or truck drift into the emergency refuge area, whereas they can and drift into the hard shoulder.

"We are now well into smart motorway operation and the statistics we have are reliable.

He added: "They are telling us that the safety record on smart motorways is arguably better than what we see on conventional motorways."

Despite the rollout, the motorways have been criticised by organisations such as the AA, which has raised safety fears with the smart roads after the death of a motorist on a section of the M1 that had no hard shoulder.

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UK set to get another 370 miles of smart motorways

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More hard shoulders are set to be taken away as 372 more miles of smart motorways are set to be rolled out across parts of the UK. Further stretches near Leeds and Sheffield are set to turn 'smart', as well as the M62 linking Manchester and Leeds.

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Questions shared by Colin Prestwich from Yorkshire Ridings Maths Hub

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Questions shared by Colin Prestwich from Yorkshire Ridings Maths Hub

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3 ways to spot a bad statistic | Mona Chalabi

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An entrepreneur has built a one-metre stretch of motorway in north-eastern Romania to protest about his country's poor highway infrastructure.

Fed up with the sparse motorway network in his home region of Moldavia, Stefan Mandachi, a 33-year-old who owns a chain of fast-food restaurants, privately commissioned the tiny motorway at a personal cost of £3,800 (€4,400; $5,000).

The campaign lasted for weeks with the aim of causing a stir, and it came to a climax on Friday.

Romania has one of the shortest motorway networks in the European Union, with just 806km (500 miles) throughout the whole country. This despite having a land mass almost equal to that of the UK.

Sitting in the hotel he owns, just a few kilometres from the new road, Mr Mandachi explained his thinking.

"We want to unify the population, we have an ideal - to have motorways," he told the BBC.

His motorway, situated on a plot of land he owns next to a busy main road, was symbolically built in Suceava, a part of the country that has no stretches of motorway at all.

Traffic on the adjacent road was almost gridlocked as several hundred supporters turned out for the so-called motorway inauguration.

A media scrum was on hand, along with ambulances and fire engines, while a small plane flew overhead with a banner demanding motorways.

"I feel that we are united," shouted Mr Mandachi above a din of honking horns. "I've never lived through a moment of such solidarity amongst all Romanians."

We are the only region in Romania which doesn't have any motorways, we don't have a metre, so I decided to build one metre to prove it is possible"

Crowds whooped and cheered as he cut the ribbon to open what people have come to call a "motorway monument".

How mini-motorway struck a chord nationally

The entrepreneur ran an aggressive campaign called "Romania wants Motorways" and asked fellow citizens to protest with him by stopping work for 15 minutes on Friday as he opened his stretch of road.

The campaign has led to serious discussions across the country.

"More and more people in Romania - normal, everyday citizens - are starting to get agitated," says Ionut Ciurea, director of Pro Infrastructure Association, an NGO that monitors major motorway projects in Romania.

"Politicians come to power and say they'll build 1,000km of motorways in five years. It's not possible even with the best technical capacity from everybody involved," he adds, suggesting that Mr Mandachi might need to wait as long as 25 years to see a "decent" motorway network in his home region.

According to Mr Ciurea, poor roads cost Romania's economy billions every year. "We estimate that around 2% of Romania's GDP is lost on road access," he says. "That's huge."

Across the country, mayors, companies, and even footballers joined in Stefan Mandachi's "Romania wants Roads" protest.

Danish furniture maker JYSK, which has 73 stores in Romania, closed its doors to customers at the allotted time.

"When all regions of the country are connected by motorways, our customers will get their products faster, with lower delivery costs," said the firm's country manager Alex Bratu.

In 2018, Romania opened just 58km of motorways.

Meanwhile, many projects over the years have been plagued by corruption scandals.

In 2016, a new motorway in southern Transylvania quickly earned the nickname the "highway of shame". It was inaugurated twice because it need repair work almost immediately, and was then demolished a year later after a spate of safety concerns.

'Patience has reached a limit'

Romania also has the EU's highest rate of road deaths.

In 2017, Romania recorded 98 deaths per million inhabitants due to road accidents, double the EU average and more than three times that of the UK.

"More people die each year than those who died in the 1989 revolution," says Mr Mandachi, who arranged a car crash scene next to his motorway, with an ambulance and a funeral car, highlighting Romania's deadly roads.

Razvan Cuc, Romania's minister of transport, has declared the Mandachi road illegal due to a lack of permits, but told local media that he understood Mr Mandachi's concerns.

"Patience has reached a limit," he said.

Mr Cuc's understanding, however, has does little to placate the motorway entrepreneur.

"It's not enough that he understands our frustration, he has to act, because we all know the problem - we need motorways," says Mr Mandachi.

Shortly before the one-metre motorway was inaugurated, Romania's ruling Social Democrat-led government announced that the transport minister had travelled to the nearby city of Bacau where work would begin on a Moldavian motorway.

Stefan Mandachi remains sceptical. "I don't see anything, I don't see a construction site," he says.

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Romanian mini-motorway highlights 'failed' road network

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An entrepreneur has built a one-metre stretch of motorway in north-eastern Romania to protest about his country's poor highway infrastructure. Fed up with the sparse motorway network in his home region of Moldavia, Stefan Mandachi, a 33-year-old who owns a chain of fast-food restaurants, privately commissioned the tiny motorway at a personal cost of £3,800 (€4,400; $5,000).

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What are good examples of misleading statistics?

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Answer (1 of 76): Visual representation is one of the best methods to show a statistic. It's simplicity provide a better ways to understand a trend. It is helpful for not only a professional but also to a layman. But the same representation is one of the most deceitful methods if someone is tryi...

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Graphs, maps and charts from The Times — and an invitation to students to discuss them live.

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Very useful for preparing for critical analysis questions

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Very useful for preparing for critical analysis questions

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From The Times Newspaper: The over-55s keeping classrooms going amid a teaching crisis Richard Lewis will be 70 on Tuesday. A former City ba...

This is taken from a Daily Telegraph article (with paragraphs removed to save space). Shrinkflation is speeding up at an alarming rate T...

With thanks to Cat van Saarloos for the data file, here's a Quibans from the Daily Mirror. Police release names most commonly linked wit...

From The Times Newspaper: The over-55s keeping classrooms going amid a teaching crisis Richard Lewis will be 70 on Tuesday. A former City ba...

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Items that can be used to provoke mathematical questions. Particularly useful for teachers of Core Maths.

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PISA - Measuring student success around the world

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Share your own questions based on AQA pre-release material

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Share your own questions based on AQA pre-release material

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Practical advice for supporting students with open problems

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Practical advice for supporting students with open problems

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All lane running Contents

72.Highways England claim that the capacity improvements obtained from use of all lane running cost 60% less than traditional motorway widening, and are 40% more cost efficient than only using the hard shoulder at peak times. Overall, this particular claim has not been challenged in the written and oral evidence given to the inquiry.

73.Traditional motorway widening is extremely expensive and disruptive. There is generally no hard shoulder while construction is underway. The precise costs of a motorway widening scheme will vary according to the location, due to differences in landscape, land costs, and the cost of environmental undertaking and mitigation. Traditional motorway widening is now relatively rare. To take an example, the M25 J27-30 motorway widening scheme cost £272.4 million in 2002 figures (the figures used in the 2014 post-project evaluation). This is roughly £16.2 million per mile. In 2008, in the same written answer that gave the cost of the M42 Active Traffic Management pilot at £9.0 million per mile, the estimated cost of one mile of standard 3-lane motorway with a hard shoulder was said to be between £21.4 million and £35.0 million. This puts the cost of traditional motorway widening, both in terms of actual construction cost and the disruption caused, far above the costs of all smart motorway schemes.

74.The M42 scheme is by far the most infrastructure-intensive of the Smart Motorway options, with significantly more gantries and variable mandatory speed limit signs than other types of scheme. It is the most expensive alternative to traditional motorway widening. According to a written answer in 2008, the M42 scheme cost £9.0 million per mile. This is not adjusted for current prices, which may be very different due to the global financial crisis in the intervening period, but provides a rough estimate which is less expensive than motorway widening, but more expensive that other, less infrastructure-intensive designs of Smart Motorways.

75.All Lane Running is by far the least expensive of the options given. With fewer gantries, refuge areas and signals than other models, the financial savings can be substantial. The actual and projected costs of current and future All Lane Running schemes can be found in Table 4, showing a significant saving against traditional motorway widening and the M42 Active Traffic Management pilot.

Source: www.highways.gov.uk ; Motorways: Written question - ; Motorways: Written question - . In future projects, only projects where a cost has been published by Highways England have been included.

76.Cost savings are at the heart of the Department's justification for the permanent conversion of the hard shoulder into a running lane. Andrew Jones denied that this was a design "on the cheap", telling us that this was a key ingredient in a £15 billion national strategic road network budget over this spending period. The Government's preference for All Lane Running is based on the fact that extra capacity can be obtained at a 60% lower cost than traditional road widening. The fact that All Lane Running is the least costly of the scheme designs cannot be challenged. That this involves the loss of the hard shoulder, resulting in a risk to safety, is another matter and is not justifiable.

77. We do not support the deployment of all lane running. Given that Highways England's own risk assessments show that other forms of smart motorway are safer than All Lane Running, and still improve capacity, we recommend the design of the M42 Active Traffic Management pilot, or, less preferably, Dynamic Hard Shoulder Running as safer alternatives. The cost saving of All Lane Running cannot justify the increase in risk of certain hazards.

78. The Department would do well to decouple its thinking, and not assume that the loss of the hard shoulder is essential for the installation of a controlled environment. The "smart" in smart motorways does not come from the loss of the hard shoulder, but for motorists this is undeniably the most disturbing aspect of the changes. It could be seen as disingenuous to present this change as part and parcel of "smart" motorways. The Department cannot use a reduction in risk in some hazards to justify an increase in risk in others.

79. It is not justifiable for the Department to go ahead with a major motorway programme with only one year's worth of safety information from the specific design that they have chosen. The All Lane Running design has been chosen on the basis of cost savings, and it is not acceptable for the Department to proceed with a less-safe design, putting people's lives at risk, in order to cut costs.

80. We recommend an immediate halt to the rollout of All Lane Running, and that the proposed schemes be replaced by schemes based on the M42 Active Traffic Management design. That is, a design incorporating the temporary use of the hard shoulder as required, gantries spaced at a distance of 500-800 metres, and emergency refuge areas spaced at the same distance.

15 June 2016

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House of Commons - All lane running - Transport Committee

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All lane running Contents 72.Highways England claim that the capacity improvements obtained from use of all lane running cost 60% less than traditional motorway widening, and are 40% more cost efficient than only using the hard shoulder at peak times. Overall, this particular claim has not been challenged in the written and oral evidence given to the inquiry.

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Data about the construction, expenditure and taxation of roads, produced by Department for Transport.

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Test your motorway knowledge with our big M-way quiz

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Slow, crowded and sometimes dangerous, the UK's motorways are an essential part of the road network. But how well do you know them?

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The government's ambition to make Britain's schools among the best in the world in teaching core subjects by 2020 appears to have been foiled, after international comparisons published on Tuesday showed few signs of improvement.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's programme for international student assessment (Pisa) found a little-changed performance in reading, maths and science among 15- and 16-year-olds in England - but good enough to make it the best performing UK nation after a sharp decline in Scotland's performance.

In the 2015 election campaign, the Conservatives said they aimed to have England among the top countries in Europe by 2020 based on international rankings. But the steep improvement now required means the ambition is doomed after the latest results were almost identical to the OECD's 2012 tests.

The Pisa exams are administered to more than 500,000 pupils in the 70 countries that paid to take part, with the three subjects examined worldwide at the end of 2015. At the top of the table, Singapore replaced Shanghai for all three subjects tested, with Shanghai's stellar maths effort in 2012 diluted by the addition of students from Beijing, Jiangsu and Guangdong this time, sending its results tumbling.

The UK's combined ranking in science rose six places to 15th despite a slight fall in pupil performances, illustrating the fluctuations of the Pisa league tables and why education experts prefer to look at a country's exam scores rather than international placings to gauge success.

The UK's maths ranking fell by one place to 27th but its reading position rose two places, although in both cases the actual scores were barely changed from 2012's exam results.

"For the UK as a whole this is not a bad result: essentially no change," said Robert Coe, professor of education at Durham University. "Now that the political contexts of the education systems of the four UK nations are entirely separate, people will increasingly concentrate on the performance of those separate nations.

"All three measures place England, Scotland and Wales in that order, and these gaps will no doubt be the focus of intense political attention and rivalry."

While Shanghai's demise meant that the gap between the UK and the top of the table closed dramatically, the static results make it almost impossible for the British government to realise its aim in the 2015 Conservative manifesto "to make Britain the best place in the world to study maths, science and engineering, measured by improved performance in the Pisa league tables".

Nicky Morgan, the then education secretary, also said during the election campaign that England's schools were to be "the best in Europe for literacy and maths by 2020".

In the UK average performance in all three subjects has fallen in the past three years

The 2015 results place the UK among a group of similar European countries including France and Spain, and behind leading lights such as Finland, Estonia, Ireland and Germany.

But ministers in London may be buoyed by England's better performance compared with the three other home nations. Scotland in particular suffered a poor set of results, with substantial falls in reading and science compounded by a fall in maths.

England scored 500 in reading and 493 in maths, while Scotland dipped to 493 in reading and 491 in maths, a fall of 13 and seven points respectively from 2012.

Performance in science fell across the UK in 2015

Scotland's weak results left England as the highest scoring UK nation in both science and reading, and tied with Northern Ireland for the best result in maths.

Labour's Scottish education spokesman, Iain Gray, said the SNP should be ashamed by the results. "These are terrible results after 10 years of SNP government. They must wake up to the fact that their cuts to school budgets, teachers numbers and support staff are damaging the life chances of Scotland's children," Gray said.

John Swinney, the Scottish education secretary, admitted the Pisa figures "undoubtedly make uncomfortable reading" but said its findings underlined the "plain message" that sweeping reforms of school education were needed.

Those would include detailed attainment measures for each school - attacked by critics as new league tables, and devolving control to schools and communities.

"It is by carrying through on these reforms - no matter how controversial - that we can make Scottish education world-class again," Swinney said.

Wales also lost ground in science and reading. There was better news for reformers in Cardiff with a substantial improvement in maths scores. However, Wales alone of the UK nations fell below the OECD average in all three subjects.

In Scotland performance in reading had its largest fall, from a high in 2012

Kirsty Williams, Wales' education secretary, said the advice she had received from a recent OECD report was to press on with the government's school reforms.

"Pisa may divide opinion but it is the recognised international benchmark for skills. It has never been more important to demonstrate to ourselves, and to the world, that our young people can compete with the best," Williams said.

Wales still underperforms in maths compared to the rest of the UK despite improvements in 2015

"Other small, innovative nations have stolen a march on us in their reform journeys. But if Ireland and Estonia can do it, so can we."

Nick Gibb, the schools minister for England, said more grammar schools could boost future Pisa results for England: "We know that grammar schools provide a good education for their disadvantaged pupils, which is why we want more pupils from lower income backgrounds to benefit from them."

In Australia average rankings in all three subjects have fallen over the past six years but are still higher than in the UK

But Gibbs' view was disputed by Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, who said Pisa offered "strong evidence" that early selection of pupils by schools did not narrow gaps in attainment.

"Any government serious about evidence-based policy must address this finding," Hobby said.

John Jerrim, of the UCL Institute of Education, said the science results showed England's grammar school pupils to be among the best performers in the world.

"These figures do not provide any evidence as to whether grammar schools are more effective than other school types, as differences in the demographic characteristics of pupils and their prior achievement has not been taken into account," Jerrim said.

Andreas Schleicher, director of education for the OECD, said the Pisa data showed "clearly and consistently" that selection by ability at a young age led to middle class students doing better at the expense of the more disadvantaged.

"As you make a system more selective, you have to redouble your efforts to mediate its impact on social backgrounds. That is really important," Schleicher said.

Schleicher also said that the spate of school reforms in UK nations were yet be felt.

"When I look at Wales, I think the really interesting reforms are too recent to show any impact. I actually think they have a lot of promise but you can't see them now," he said.

"Scotland is more of a surprise to me, I would have hoped and expected that some of the efforts they have made would have come out. But in the data there is no evidence, rather the opposite."

In England, with the advent of academies and greater school autonomy, "you'd have hoped that, certainly at the top end, England would be more prominent than it is. Maybe it's too soon," Schleicher said.

"When you don't see improvements it's important to revisit maybe not the design but the implementation. It's important to keep a careful eye on that," Schleicher said.

Singapore's success, topping all three tables in mathematics, reading and science, has been seized on by enthusiasts of the "mastery" approach to maths, deployed to great success in Singapore and east Asian countries at the top of the OECD tables and in other recent international maths tests.

In the US the average ranking for maths fell to 470 in 2015

The mastery approach aims to deepen pupils' conceptual understanding of mathematical concepts, covering fewer topics but in greater depth.

The UK government has developed a teacher exchange programme with Shanghai and wants to roll out the mastery method in England's classrooms. So far, more than 360 schools have implemented the mastery method, reaching 3,000 teachers and almost 100,000 primary and secondary pupils.

Helen Drury, executive director of the mathematics mastery development programme, said the UK remained in "a frustratingly average position" in the Pisa tables but the results were a reminder of what can be learned from high performing countries.

British teachers should be given time for high-quality professional development throughout their career, as is standard in Singapore and Shanghai, Drury said.

Details from the report showed a high percentage of head teachers in the UK complained about staff shortages, while truancy was higher than many other OECD countries.

Why do you think schools in some areas perform better than others? In the UK, England's results are now better than Scotland and Wales, and in Europe, Finland, Estonia, Ireland and Germany lead the top of the table with their results. Share your views in the form or in the comments below.
Q: Most migratory birds gather in one area and then migrate in large groups rather than individually. This behaviour is a result of evolution. Which of the following is the best scientific explanation for the evolution of this behaviour in most migratory birds? A: Birds that migrated individually or in small groups were less likely to survive and have offspring. B: Birds that migrated individually or in small groups were more likely to find adequate food. C: Flying in large groups allowed other bird species to join the migration. D: Flying in large groups allowed each bird to have a better chance of finding a nesting site.
Sample Pisa exam questions - science
Q: Rocks in space that enter Earth's atmosphere are called meteoroids. Meteoroids heat up, and glow as they fall through Earth's atmosphere. Most meteoroids burn up before they hit Earth's surface. When a meteoroid hits Earth it can make a hole called a crater. As a meteoroid approaches Earth and its atmosphere, it speeds up. Why does this happen? A: The meteoroid is pulled in by the rotation of Earth. B: The meteoroid is pushed by the light of the Sun. C: The meteoroid is attracted to the mass of Earth. D: The meteoroid is repelled by the vacuum of space.[answer: C]
[answer: A]

Topics

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UK schools fail to climb international league table

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The government's ambition to make Britain's schools among the best in the world in teaching core subjects by 2020 appears to have been foiled, after international comparisons published on Tuesday showed few signs of improvement.

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The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) evaluates education systems worldwide by testing 15-year-olds in key subjects. The focus of PISA 2012 was mathematics. Some countries chose to assess other subjects too such as problem-solving and financial literacy. To understand more about the PISA 2012 mathematics, problem-solving and financial literacy tests, click below to answer sample questions.