iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

In terms of "will I get students?". There's no guarantee, but last year we had 3 times as many enquiries as we had slots available.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

We're taking on one or two more tutors. If you teach A Level Maths and fancy some online tutoring alongside it, have a look. Any questions feel free to ask.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Any AQA markers that did the stats paper that could check 1 part of 1 question from 2026 for me? Q15 (c)(iv). I have a student that needs 1 more mark to go up a grade

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

I don't teach in a school anymore, but from what I recall, there was very little y13 content we needed to teach early. Radians being a notable exception. It did require very careful sequencing of y12 topics though as we were on AQA. I think it's easier on Edexcel for most module combinations.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

This may not be as sensible as it first seems. When I was course leader we made the change to mix. It lead to a considerable improvement in progress made by non further maths students (class expectations raised) with no dip in Further Maths progress.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Thanks. Ideally I'm looking for how much progress y14 resit student make on their original grade. I imagine the data exists at exam board level, but I doubt it's ever been released.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Does anyone know of any national level stats related to how students perform in A Level Maths resits compared to their original grade? #ALevelMaths

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Interesting data, but dlightly misleading in the context it was used in that slide. I suspect the lower end would look very different if students who dropped out before the exams were included. Especially when that slide implies they are discussing who to admit on the course.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

But what you perceive as an arm and a leg may just be a comfortable montly payment for millions of people. Leasing means you simply need to have a decent montly cash flow. And what's the point in owning a car that will only depreciate in value.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

But they're not eye wateringly expensive if you lease them.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

I would recommend investigating Miro's Education Plan. It certainly used to be free if you can prove you're a teacher (and I think it still is). You could create each student a board if you wanted to. It's a good piece of software - all my tutoring team use it.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

4. Writing the conditional probability formula with P(A|B) as the subject 5. Adding in the PMCC CVs that they obviously forgot the first time round Note: I don't actually think they'll do these things - that would be too sensible 2/2

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

1. Getting rid of that stupid dot in the binomial formula that looks like a decimal point. 2. Writing the quotient rule in terms of u and v 3. Putting in the formula for independent events 1/2

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Interesting. Can you find out how this calculator evaluates tan(2)?

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Normal way to make modified papers: 1. Select all. 2. Change font size. 2025 way: 1. Select all. 2. Change font size. 3. Save paper 1.doc as paper2.doc 4. Claim that's what you meant to do.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

I also find using equating coefficients for polynomial division allows me to make links with other topics that require equating coefficients, like rsin(x+alpha).

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

I teach students to equate coefficients. Mostly in their head for more able students. In my experience, the reason the majority teach long division is because that's the way they were shown at school.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Not as far as I am aware. In fact I'd say it's inefficient as it contains redundant steps which you can avoid if you set it up similar to partial fractions and equate coefficients.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Unfortunately, it requires a login.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

I tutor around 30 hours a week across all 4 exam boards, so have a bit of knowledge of the differences between specs. I also have access to a comprehensive, searchable questions by topic database of all past paper questions.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

I'm going for "Questions on stuff that hasn't been on paper 1 papers".

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

The Numworks is a lot better than the CG50. The CG50 is a bit like polynomial long division - everyone recommends it because it's all they know, but it's actually a bit naff compared to the alternatives.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

Incidentally, the example above is called a point of undulation. I find that the graph of the second derivate (purple in this graph) nicely shows how the second derivative can be zero without a change of sign.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

If it's Edexcel or OCR it will be PAYE

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

Are we sure this isn't just correlation, rather than causation? Given that students who take further maths are generally much stronger mathematicians to start with, couldn't an equally valid conclusion be "if you want to be good at Maths A level, be good at Maths GCSE"?

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

The original implication seems to be that it is unfair that the plasterer should be earning more than the supply teacher. I am putting forward an argument that there are various factors that in my opinion do justify it. If this is not the case, I am not sure why it is an 'interesting comparison'.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

It's different because the supply teacher just writes their name on a list and then gets offered work. The plasterer has to advertise, get his name out there and if he doesn't do a quality job it hurts his chances in the future. I think some people underestimate how hard it is being self-employed.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Your plasterer likely has to supply his own tools, has his own insurance, has all the risks associated with being self employed, has to aquire all his own leads, has to go out to quote for jobs he might not get and isn't being handed work on a plate. Seems reasonable that he's charging £250 to me.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

As a side note, the fact that you can edit this value is also a huge advantage with the CG50 when calculating critical regions for hypothesis tests, especially when using the right tail.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Rob is correct. Some bright spark at Casio thought it would be a good idea to confuse students all over the world by truncating. Use OPTN -> Edit (F1) while the value is highlighted to see a more precise value.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

OCR people have to use this. I do not like it because I can't draw a man in a cave and say the curve is concave.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

I suppose that's true. But then they end up using the 'other one' for literally every new specification exam question from every exam board. I find it easier to just tell students to ignore it.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

I'd say it's about as useful as this:

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

I'm a big fan of 'blobs' for things like this (and various other topics, like chain rule).

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

As others have said, it seems to be a hangover from when tables were used. Edexcel thankfully seem to have given up on using Z unnecessarily now in mark schemes. In the images here you can see they were clinging onto it in 2018 (1st MS), but by 2021 they'd finally let go (2nd MS).

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Oh, it also took all this text I wrote for this thread in Microsoft Word, corrected all the spelling mistakes and split it into parts so that I could post it on bluesky

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

So please avoid making blanket statements like GenAI is useless. It has genuinely changed my life and if people listen to you they may miss out on the same. If it doesn't work for you - fine, but that doesn't mean something is useless.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

12/ This doesn’t even include GitHub Copilot in VSCode, which also runs on ChatGPT. It saves me hours of coding whenever I need to implement something new for my website.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

11/ It helped me identify an open-source library on GitHub for a project. It even outlined several options and summarised their pros and cons.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

10/ My dad is in a legal case for hearing loss with a previous employer. His solicitor asked him to write a detailed multi-page letter. ChatGPT scanned the request, took my dad's input, and created an amazing response in 20 minutes—better than I could have done in 2 hours.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

9/ It explained why Holly was missing for a few seasons of Red Dwarf. I often ask it random things while doing chores, like cooking dinner.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

8/ I copied and pasted an email header when I wasn’t sure what an error code meant. ChatGPT parsed the info and explained it in a way I could easily understand.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

7/ Over Christmas, he had a lovely conversation with SantaGPT about what he wanted for Christmas. The voice was so realistic, it felt like talking to the real Santa! He loved it.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

6/ My 7-year-old son is playing through the old Final Fantasy VII. He struggles (he’s 7), so I let him use the voice version of ChatGPT to figure out tricky parts of the story—much easier than searching online.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

5/ It’s often quicker than a search engine, especially when I combine an image and a description. While renovating my staircase, I was unsure which way something needed to fit. I shared a picture, explained my issue, and it helped me figure it out.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

4/ A few days ago, I had the flu and was struggling with my voice. ChatGPT read bedtime stories to my 4-year-old daughter while I lay with her. She loved that they were personalised and about her (mostly dragons and princesses).

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

3/ I recently found out I was coeliac. ChatGPT helped me a lot by answering in-depth questions and remembering what I said when I asked follow-ups.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

2/ It saves me several hours every week in email writing time. I can tell it in my own words the gist of what I want it to say, and it writes professional emails that I usually only need to make minor tweaks to.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

1/ Here's a quick look through my chat history. This is just a small sample of things I’ve used ChatGPT for in the last month.

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Andy @andypmaths.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

No, its really not. It's like you using an Aldi special buy coffee machine and then claiming all home coffee machines are useless. Then someone who owns a proper one tells you that actually some coffee machines make really good coffee, but you reply that they can't be any good because yours isn't.

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