Grade 4 Essentials for GCSE Maths: Extension Module: Top-end Topics

This is a supplementary module to the Grade 4 Essentials for GCSE Maths suite of courses.

It fills in the few remaining gaps at the top end of the Foundation Tier so that the whole specification is covered. You could think of these topics as being at the Foundation/Higher crossover level.

It’s ideal for home educators, adult learners, and anyone else who feels they would benefit from a bit of top-quality support to give them the best possible chance of achieving Grade 5 in the GCSE or Edexcel IGCSE – or who’s doing the Higher Tier and wants to make sure that they’re fully up to speed on the Foundation content.

The main course is divided into four modules:

• Module 1: Number and Ratio
  
• Module 2: Geometry and Measure
• Module 3: Algebra and Graphs
• Module 4: Statistics and Probability

There’s no obligation to do all of these; you’re welcome to just do the modules that you think will be of most benefit to you personally.

The topics covered in this supplementary module are:

• Ratio: ratio and algebra; 3 items, 2 ratios
• Percentages: compound percentage change
• Trigonometry: sine, cosine and tangent; exact trig values (GCSE only)
• Graphs: travel graphs, linear inequality graphs (IGCSE only), rate of change and tangent to a graph (IGCSE only)

A few of what I’d class as top-end Foundation topics are already covered within the main body of the Grade 4 Essentials course; for the sake of completeness I’ve also repeated those video lessons at the end of this module, though if you want to do the associated quizzes you’ll need to enrol on the relevant modules. These topics, listed against the modules that they come from, are:

• Geometry: arc length & sector area; identifying and proving congruence (GCSE only)
• Algebra: sketching quadratic curves
• Statistics: averages with grouped data

How to use this course

Click on the Curriculum tab above (if you’re on mobile then it’s the middle one, with the hamburger icon) to see the course structure. Once you’re enrolled, if you click on one of the lessons then you’ll be taken into that lesson.

This module is shorter than the the others but, like them, it contains:

• video lessons
• supporting handouts that you can print out (though you can manage without them if you don’t have access to a printer)
• quizzes for you to check your understanding (under construction at present, hence the low price)
• links to free online resources that you can use for additional practice.

The video lessons include lots of opportunities to practise the skills being taught. To make the most of each lesson you should pause the video when prompted, and try to answer any questions that have been set, before you continue watching to see the solutions. If you’re not able to do the questions straight away then don’t worry, but try to reveal the solutions just a bit at a time, then pause again and make some progress on your own before revealing the next bit. So although the running time of each video is usually between 5 and 15 minutes, if you use them properly then they’ll take you considerably longer.

Once you’ve completed all the lessons, you qualify for a completion certificate, which you can download for free. Since the aim is to build your confidence and skills rather than to hit an arbitrary number of correct answers, completion only requires you to work through all the lessons, not to achieve a particular score on the quizzes. The quizzes are more of a tool for you to check how well you’ve understood and remembered the material.

If you’re confident that you don’t need some of the lessons then have a go at the relevant quizzes first. If you get the questions for those lessons right then you can probably get away with skipping them (though you may miss out on some useful nuggets of information), but if you don’t then it’s definitely worth working through the lessons.

Of course, you will also need to practise exam questions. This course series focuses more on the underlying skills. There are great – and free – collections of exam questions by topic, with solutions, available from GCSE Maths Questions, Maths4Everyone, SaveMyExams and JustMaths, as well as complete past papers on various sites. For GCSE you don’t just need to stick to your own exam board; questions from all boards are worth doing.

Constructive feedback is always welcome!