New Website! Hints for Exams (but not just for Maths)

[Nevil Hopley]

Dear Secondary School Teachers,

This announcement will be of interest to teachers of Maths, Statistics, Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry, Engineering Science and maybe some other subjects too, such as Biology and Design & Manufacture.

November 2019: I observed one of my department colleagues teach a revision lesson ahead of Prelim exams where they had hints on bits of paper for how to complete past exam questions, which their pupils referred to during the lesson.

February 2020: There now exists a fully operational website that reveals hints one at a time, for every part of every question for a multitude of past exam papers, with opportunity for *anyone* to contribute to the growing collection.

At present, the website has hints for several years' exams for....

SQA Chemistry (National 5)

SQA Engineering Science (National 5)

SQA Maths (National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher)

SQA Mechanics (Advanced Higher)

SQA Statistics (Advanced Higher)

SQA Physics (National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher)

But it does not have to be restricted to just SQA exams or STEM subjects!

Any exam or subject where there is typically a set order of processes to follow could be part of the collection.

Interested?

Have a look here:

https://hints.nhost.uk/

This is a FREE service, and it will remain that way, forever.

Please share this website far and wide, to colleagues around the rest of the UK and across the globe. If you are attending the SMC Conference in Stirling in March 2020, then tell others about it. Post it on Facebook and Twitter. Show it to your pupils and colleagues in other departments in your school. If you can, why not post a link to it on Glow?

There could be hints written for all manner of GCSE, A-Level and many other country's exams.

Two further notes of interest:

1. This whole collaborative project is a way to support pupils who may otherwise struggle to either start or finish an exam question. It is not attempting to provide worked solutions and it is hoped to be more accessible for pupils than a formal marking instruction.

2. The website silently records every hint which is viewed, as well as if it is voted up or down for its helpfulness. Over time, this is expected to reveal which questions generate the most requests for help, as well as which hints pupils find either most or least useful.

Thank you in advance for your interest, support and promotional energy!

Nevil Hopley

[seebee Khalil]

This is fantastic. I will be sharing it on our pupil news forum. Excellent idea.

[Nevil Hopley]

And we've just gone through the 'Ten Thousand Hints Viewed' watershed.....!

Nevil

[Nevil Hopley]

After just passing 13,200 Hints having been viewed, a small update for you all....

All AH Maths and Higher Maths exams now include links to individual video solutions by Mr Burns (aka DLBMaths) that he has created over many years.
So, once a pupil has viewed all the available hints for any question, they can then watch a video of the solution being constructed.

At present the 2019 National 5 Maths Hints also has solution videos.
The other years' exams for National 5 Maths will have videos embedded in them within the next 7 days.

This notice is being sent out today because of the growing likelihood that Scottish Schools may not be open for much longer.

Hoping this helps as many pupils as possible as they prepare for their SQA exams, that we all hope will happen at some point.

Nevil