In order to make my marking more relevant to individual students' needs, while at the same time maintaining a certain amount of work/life balance, I have started a bank of Maths stickers designed to help me write less, while marking more. Ofsted commented last week, Jan 2015, that it also allows students to raise their own concerns and questions, thereby displaying progress over time in an outstanding manner, developing their communication skills, and pushing their learning outside of the students' comfort zones. If they are of any use to you, please feel free to alter/adapt as you see fit.

A Surds worksheet the pushes from basic add and subtract questions, to harder questions requiring students to simplify prior to completing the addition and subtraction work. Titles in colour, but don’t require printing in colour - 2 worksheets given, answers also provided now.

I was visiting a colleague's RE lesson for ideas, and she was using a snooker style game to get the students to revise for an upcoming test. After talking to the students (who loved the activity) and getting ideas from them how to modify it towards Maths, I have had a go at creating some basic templates, and two topical sheets. I have not yet had the time to create an answer sheet for the Similarity/Congruency ones, but will upload it later during the Easter holidays. The two congruency sheets can be used separately, or copied double sided to provide a more thorough learning session. I used the Averages one during a lesson observation for a job interview with top set year 8's (2nd lesson into topic), and the Similarity one with top and middle sets year 10's. All went well, and students have asked for more, saying they like the ability to challenge themselves while also having the ability to refresh on the more easier questions. If you see any errors, please let me know - Have fun adapting them for yourself if you feel they are useful to you. Scaffolding can be given in separate 'cards' for any students needing it - i just wrote a couple of useful questions on the board for them to consider while working on them.

A second batch of target task stickers designed to focus students' attention on improving their understanding of a topic. Many of these ones I have used with my years 7-9 students, although I have added a few more from my present topic with year 10s. I will include the templates I have used to make them, in case you wish to start with a beginning place. I have also slightly altered a few strength ones, so that house points, EP and Literacy may be checked at the same time as entering a strength - a simple matter if you are altering any of the downloaded ones.

Like my other snooker resources, this one is designed to cover a range of levels, allowing for differentiation within the lesson more easily than providing loads of different sheets. I used this with a set 3 year 8 group, who found the higher colors very challenging (lots of EAL students as well, so struggled with the English) but middle and top sets were able to access almost the majority of the questions. Questions were chosen from other sources, and the colors denote the difficulty level of the questions. Could also be used as revision with year 10s and 11s, or as a pre-assessment to find out what types of questions are likely to cause them to stumble. Not definitive in questions - will be doing a second sheet of these which can be copied onto the reverse side allowing for a much longer activity, with greater variety in questions for even higher ability students. Answers to follow, will be added on by next week.

This is a resource I created following an idea gleaned from another teacher, where questions for the students to work on are colour coded to difficulty level earning students points for completing them correctly. Students work on them in pairs/triplets and can either mark each others work as they play through, or have their answers marked by the teacher while circulating the room. Answers are currently setup in the same outline structure as the game sheet, and do not have to be printed in colour. In my classroom, I laminated the sheets myself to keep in a file and pull out whenever the topic comes up again. Great for differentiation, extension, revision activities, cover work, observation lessons, .... I have uploaded them in Word, so that they can be altered to suit other topics you need to cover (template included).... enjoy :)

Again, I have used a style of outline present within MissB'sResources on her PRET homeworks page, to create a homework for my year 9-4 group on the topic of Rounding to decimal places, significant figures, and using the upper and lower bounds to perform calculations. I had already covered the work in lesson, and wanted to see how much they were still able to complete on their own after being away from the topic for a couple of weeks. To differentiate, I simply give different questions to students, depending on where their ability was within lessons, so they would not all necessarily need to do all the basic questions. I also set as an extension for the more able in the group to create their own question and bring it back to the teaching group a week after the homework was handed in to be marked.

More in my collection of maths marking stickers, useful for KS3 and KS4 when marking books, needing extension tasks for those students ready to progress on quicker than others, revision for year 11s on topics to remind them of structure of exam questions. Again, in a ready to edit manner, and easily printed on normal or sticker paper. Used in a structured manner with my stickers on marking books, teachers can mark an entire set of 30 books in 30-40 minutes, with personal targetted intervention stickers to allow for fixing/furthering a topic which can then be done independently within a student’s spare time, or during class DIRT time. Any questions on how I use them, feel free to email me.

Each sheet is a question, copied 8 times, for printing purposes. Students use these with my STEP marking stickers in order to improve a weak/insecure topic area during DIRT time. Feel free to alter in any way you like and share, so that more teachers spend less time marking books while still giving highly individualized feedback to students! These are the newest batch I have created, using questions from old exam papers, and textbooks, in order to make students take more ownership of their improvement. Could easily be adapted to other subjects, by simply changing the questions to relate to their needs (as could the STEP stickers in my other resources on here). i will continue to add more linked to the NEW GCSE Spec over the coming months, so make sure you check in again by the end of the school year.

I used the MEP chapter 7 Mental Test on Transformations, and created a Word document that didn't have the answers directly beside the questions. Students stick the target task sticker into their books, and have a copy of the transformations diagram between two of them to look at, while writing the answers the questions onto their sticker. The questions (Word doc) are put onto the board as a timed pre-assessment to the unit in order to identify weak areas of knowledge about the 4 transformations. After this, students exchange books to mark the answers and total up their scores. I used a coding system of circle (questions on translations), square (questions on rotations), triangle (questions on reflections) and rhombus (questions on enlargements). Giving 1 mark for every single answer (3 marks for Q8 on the first page, and 2 marks for each of questions 3,4,5 on the final page) and following the coding system, it breaks down the misconceptions of students into the 4 specific transformations they need further teaching on. I then structured the next few lessons into workplace areas to visit depending on which topic they needed the most practice. The starter of each lesson focused on knowledgeable students modelling correct working out on the board to provide scaffolding for weaker students, before they then went onto extended questions for themselves.

I have taken the time to go through some old UKMT Junior Maths Challenge papers, put them onto slides, and use them to coach groups that have either never seen Maths Challenges before (Y7s, some Y8s, even 9s) or want to brush up their skills at interpreting puzzle style questions. They can be used as starters for higher end groups at beginnings of lessons when students enter the room, just to get their brain juices flowing, or in any way you see fit. **Obviously not charging as it is not my work at all, but i do find them easier to use with classes in Powerpoint form, rather than printing out all the time. I will over time be adding more to this stash, as I go through them all. Hopefully you will find them as useful in this format as I do. Powerpoints both Questions only, and with Answers (and boundaries) are included.

I have given this homework to my year 8-2 class this week, after going through the topic in lesson. Their year 6 SAT scores range between 96 and 112, so it is a middle-ish group ability wise. It was designed to make sure it appeals to both boys and girls, with some research to do on the internet about flags and car manufacturer symbols. I have copied a format found from one of MissB'sResources PRET homeworks, since my tech skills aren't great at drawing outlines on pages that allowing typing inside, and used a question for stretch and challenge that I have found on a Maths Mystery here on TES - unfortunately, I have had the question for a few years now, and can no longer remember where I got it on TES, but the original designer created such a wonderful mystery question, I decided to include it (I am NOT the originator of the stretch challenge question). Please see MissB'sResources website for more inspiration, mine is quite basic but provided some revisional work for my set. Hope it is useful, although I have not yet done the answers for it.

STEP (Strength, Target, Effort, Pupil response) stickers I designed in order to mark students' exercise books after a topic, showing them what they have secured, what they need to fix and what areas they need to further their skills in. The numbered list states what skills they have covered in the teaching topic over two weeks - I tick beside the ones students have shown they are secure and comfortable with, a simple flat stroke (/) through the ones they are weak in, and circle the numbers of skill areas they have either missed completely or have not demonstrated within their books. Within the Fix-it and Further-it areas, I simply write the relevant number from the list that they now need to target during DIRT time. Target tasks are also provided for students to stick into their books, in order to practice weak areas and demonstrate a more secure grasp of a concept during class DIRT time. HP stands for House points (delete this if you don't use them in your school), Effort marks 1-3 (1 best) - change to 1-5 if you need more numbers, and B --O --A represents Below, On or Above target in that topic area. Date can be modified before printing, or left blank for students to write in themselves. Literacy is built in at the bottom in order to focus students on their work presentation as well as their maths understanding. Simply highlight in yellow if they have spellings to go back and correct, or underline DUMTUMS if they need to check all dates and titles in their work. Cut my marking time for 30 student books from 3 hours down to around 30-40 minutes (students stick them into their own books for me, so I simply mark). Change however you like

Just a few questions I put together to use Venn Diagrams with some students to go over a technique to find HCF and LCM faster than listing all possibilities for either. Hope you can find it useful.

A worksheet on solving inequalities used with my Foundation year 11s to revise the topic after we had finished in class.

Revision Clock based on compound measures, HCF and LCM, Rounding to decimal places and significant figures, and estimation. 10 questions only, but space for 2 more to be added. Answer sheet not yet added - will do that over the weekend.

I had to provide extra work for my year 10 set 4 class while working on simultaneous equations, and created this selection of three worksheets to allow for the different levels of understanding in my group. Answers are also provided, with the first of each (Bronze, Silver, Gold) on the first sheet, and the remaining answers on the second answer sheet. This was after first explaining the topic in lesson. Can be given as homework as well, should you need it.

My year 10 class was covering surds, multiples, factors, primes, percentages, bounds and expanding/factorising in our first term as scheduled by the department. I created a mixed topic worksheet, aimed mostly at a middle/high GCSE group, with some challenging problems to make sure they aimed high in their understanding. I have left it spreadsheet form, in case anyone wishes to alter it for any topic specific to their needs, or change questions to easier/more difficult. I will be creating the answer grid this weekend to go with it, so please allow me time before reviewing. I will be creating more for other year groups in the next week - check resources as they come in, and hope they are useful, even if just for year 11s needing extra questions to try. Sheet 1 is designed to be printed on A3 sheets of paper, Sheet 2 on A4 paper, and does not need to be printed in colour despite there being a couple of colour diagrams on it.