Feature

Get ready for exam season

Let us show you the best features and materials as you prepare your classes for SATs, GCSEs and A levels

06/03/2026

Get ready for exam season

With February half term in the rear-view mirror and Easter happening early this year, your thoughts will already be turning to how best support your classes to prepare for assessments, tests and exams this summer. But how do you get their learning to really stick, and what are the best resources to help you revisit topics and embed pupils’ knowledge and skills? Here we pick out some of our best features, podcast episodes and materials to inspire your planning as exam season begins in earnest.

SATs

Doing exactly what it says on the tin, our feature about preparing your pupils for their SATs gives you a detailed breakdown of the resources we have for each topic. Covering everything from geometry and statistics to long multiplication, it’s a hand-picked list of what you need to ensure your planning gives pupils the best possible chance to succeed in maths this summer.

Your planning is likely to involve working through past papers and analysing exactly what the questions are asking pupils to do. To help, we have broken down a question about perimeter and one about fractions from a past paper, and explained exactly what the demands are on pupils.

We know there are plenty of materials on our website, but it can be hard to know where to begin. In a recent podcast episode focusing on Year 6 teaching, Debbie Morgan spoke to an Assistant Maths Hub Lead and trust maths lead across a trust of 25 primary schools. The discussion focused on which materials the trust uses for Year 6 planning, and the benefits of the Ready-to-Progress materials for pupils’ progression in maths.

You may have already checked out our Year 6 curriculum map and all the units of the Curriculum Prioritisation materials. But don’t forget that there are also assessment questions, arranged by ready-to-progress criteria. They will help you gain a detailed understanding of exactly which topics your pupils know, and which ones need more time spent on them this term.

GCSEs

We’ve done all the googling so you don’t have to! If you want to know what’s available across the internet to help you with planning revision lessons, our feature picks out some of the best resource-based websites and podcast episodes to give you what you need for the coming months.

Chances are your classes have already done mock exams, and you’ve been using their results to figure out which topics to focus on when it comes to revision. We have found a selection of websites which offer revision resources and help you with results analysis. There’s even a letter to send to parents which you can personalise with your students’ results!

When it comes to exams, who better to share their view than representatives from the exam boards themselves? We got to hear from AQA, Edexcel and OCR when they came on our podcast to talk about which topics students typically do well on, and which are still proving tricky. In a 2019 episode of our podcast, we heard from AQA, Edexcel and OCR about which topics students typically do well on, and which are still proving tricky. While the conversation took place a few years ago, there are still useful insights for teachers preparing students for exams.

If students you teach are aiming for top grades at GCSE, have you used number lines with them yet? In a podcast discussion, we discover five ways to use number lines with KS4 classes, including how to use them to stretch students looking to secure grades 7-9. There are also diagrams and linked resources – what more could you want?

A level

We asked our colleague Tom Button from the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme (AMSP) to share his thoughts about A level students’ use of calculators. He gave us ten calculations that definitely require a calculator, and shared more of his experience of A level teaching.

Our dedicated page of post-16 resources has dozens of links to features, podcast episodes and professional development aimed at those teaching A level (and Core Maths). Why not take a look and see what might help you with planning this term?

As well as our own content, our friends at the AMSP have lots of useful resources to help you prepare your classes for their summer exams. Check out the resources section on their website to find out more.

So that’s the best of the best of what’s on offer when it comes to planning your revision lessons.

Good luck, and don’t forget to follow us on socials to be the first to hear about resources, videos and features to make the most of your maths teaching this term and beyond.