Lynne Davis

Students who don’t want to fall behind at the start of A-level should really do some work over the summer before starting. The last GCSE maths exam was on 10th June. That’s about 3 months before A-level courses start in September. There’s a bit of a ‘summer slide’ for students of all ages over the 6-week holidays. For GCSE to A-Level students it can be even more significant. Not just because of the extra time, but also because much of the later months were spent ‘cramming’ topics under a lot of pressure. A few things probably ‘clicked’ for them, but much will be forgotten just as quickly. So it’s incredibly useful to get ahead over the summer. I usually suggest mixing between three options: 1. Start on the A-Level course, focusing on the ‘crossover topics’ from GCSE to A-Level. To do well at A-Level students need to master some of the hardest topics from GCSE that are also used a lot in A-Level. It can be a good idea to look ahead to a few things too. The start of an A-Level course (suggestion below!) or a book for something like OCR FSMQ Add Maths can be a great place to look. 2. Prepare for the Senior Maths Challenge The @UKMathsTrust Senior Maths Challenge is on 1st October and has lots of fun and interesting problems using mostly GCSE content. It’s a great warm-up for A-Level and takes place quite early in the course, so doing some practice over the summer is an excellent idea! 3. Wider reading If it looks interesting to you and contains some maths, then do it! It’s a great time to let your interests take the lead, so read about coding or stats or popular maths or anything else. It could come in handy for university applications too but mostly it’s a great time where you can immerse yourself in something interesting. Do take some of the 3 months as a holiday, but you’ll save yourself a lot of time and enjoy A-level a lot more if you get a little bit ahead too!