A Level Mathematics

Organisation and Requirements

Lesson Equipment

Please see the list below of the minimum expectations for your equipment for each lesson. Failure to bring your equipment, including the appropriate textbook or calculator, will result in a detention that evening.

  • Two hole-punched exercise books
  • You will be provided with this
  • All lesson notes and exercises should go into the exercise book for each module
  • A scheme of work for each module
  • You will be provided with this
  • Mathematics textbooks
  • You will need to purchase the following for September 2017
  • Edexcel AS and A Level Mathematics Pure Mathematics Year 1 - £19.99 (
  • Edexcel AS and A Level Mathematics Statistics and Mechanics Year 1 - £9.99 (
  • You will need to purchase the following for September 2018
  • Edexcel AS and A Level Mathematics Pure Mathematics Year 2 - £19.99 (
  • Edexcel AS and A Level Mathematics Statistics and Mechanics Year 2 - £8.79 (
  • Two A4 lever-arch folders
  • It is your responsibility to buy this
  • Two sets of A4 folder dividers
  • It is your responsibility to buy this
  • A4 lined paper
  • It is your responsibility to buy this
  • Necessary stationary, including pencil, ruler, calculator, green pen, red pen, black pen.
  • It is your responsibility to buy this

Organisation of Lessons

All classwork should be completed in your exercise book.

Homework should be completed on paper and handed in on the due date during the lesson. Failure to do so will result in a detention that evening even if the homework is subsequently completed in free periods after the detention has been issued.

Each folder should be separated into separate sections using folder dividers

  • Admin
  • Folder monitoring sheet
  • Scheme of work
  • Revision
  • Revision notes on lined paper
  • Homework
  • Homework completed on lined paper
  • Assessments
  • Assessments completed on lined paper
  • Mark schemes for each assessment
  • Exercise book

If a student misses a lesson, it is their responsibility to catch up on the work missed. Alongside using the scheme of work as a guide, if they miss a lesson they must do the following before the next lesson

  • Email the teacher to find out the work missed
  • Find the teacher to find out the work missed
  • Speak to someone in the class to find out the work missed

Failure to complete the work missed from previous lessons will result in a student attending compulsory catch-up.

Revision and Assessments

Students will be expected to complete a revision summary at the end of each chapter. This will need to be a comprehensive, concise summary of all the content covered. This could be either written notes, flashcards, mind maps or explained diagram and will be collected in and marked by the teacher.

Failure to complete the revision summary will result in a student attending compulsory catch-up.

Students will regularly complete end of topic assessments and cumulative assessments. A student must prepare thoroughly for these assessments. As a general rule the pass mark for all assessments is 60%, approximately equivalent to a C grade. This is significantly different to grade boundaries at GCSE.

A student must achieve their target grade in any assessment. The target grade will be decided at the beginning of the year and will either be an official target grade or an aspirational target grade based on UCAS grade requirements.

Failure to achieve their target grade or 60% will result in a student attending compulsory catch-up to re-sit and mark the assessment.

The course is assessed by three externally-examined papers completed in the May/June of the final year of study.

  • Paper 1: Pure Mathematics 12 hours/100marks33.33% of the qualification
  • Paper 2: Pure Mathematics 22 hours/100marks33.33% of the qualification
  • Paper 3: Statistics and Mechanics2 hours/100marks33.33% of the qualification

Paper 1 and Paper 2 may contain questions on any topics from the Pure Mathematicscontent.Paper 3 will contain questions on topics from the Statistics content in Section A andMechanics content in Section B.

You are expected to answer all questions and can use a calculator in all assessments.

A Level Mathematics

Summer Assignment

Task 1: Summer Reading Assignment

Option 1: Choose one of the books from the recommended reading list below or select your own book on your preferred field of Mathematics. Read the book, highlighting key sections. Produce a summary of the key concepts and theories presented in the book. This should be a minimum of 500 words and a maximum of 2000.

Recommended reading

  • Alex’s Adventures in Numberland
  • Does God Play Dice by Ian Stewart
  • Fermat’s Last Theorem by Simon Singh
  • How Long Is a Piece Of String by Rob Eastaway
  • Infinity: The Quest to Think the Unthinkable by Brian Clegg
  • Mathematics: a Very Short Introduction by Timothy Gowers
  • The Codebook by Simon Singh
  • The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel
  • The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman
  • The Millennium Problems by Keith Devlin
  • Why Do Buses Come In Threes? By Rob Eastaway

Magazine subscriptions

  • National Geographic: Our Mathematical World (ourmathematicalworld.co.uk)
  • The Mathematical Gazette (
  • The Economist (economist.com)
  • The University of Cambridge: Plus Magazine (plus.maths.org)

Option 2: Choose an area of Mathematics that interests you. Research that area, making notes and making a list of the books, articles or publications that you have read. Write an extended project. This could be presented in the following way

a. Written article

b. Newspaper report

c. Dissertation

d. Written project

The project should be a minimum of 2000 words and MUST be word processed. You should aim to reference your work with articles and scientific literature, including a bibliography at the end.

Task 2: Summer Academic Assignment

Complete the two sheets recapping key skills needed for the pure and statistics elements of AS mathematics. Complete the questions on lined paper ready to hand in in your first week of term. You need to have completed all the questions to a satisfactory standard in order to pass the induction period, so make sure you look up any topics you are finding difficult.