Baseline PPE’s Year 9

Dear Parent/Guardian,

All pupils in Year 9 will be sitting a baseline GCSE Numeracy paper on: Monday 10^th June, periods 1 and 2. This will be a non-calculator (unit 1) mock paper. Pupils will complete the mock paper in Maths classrooms with their usual Maths teacher.

The purpose of this mock baseline paper is to:

• Identify what grade pupils are currently working at (without yet being taught any of the new GCSE content)
• Identify pupils’ current strengths and areas for development so that we can provide further support to pupils with their weaknesses.

In September, pupils will be moving into target classes. We will be using the work pupils have completed this year, their Year 9 end of year level and the identification of their strengths and weaknesses from this baseline paper to decide which target class pupils are put in. It is therefore extremely important that pupils attend this baseline paper.

Pupils will need the following equipment: pen, pencil, rubber and ruler.

If your child would like to know what topics may come up in this baseline paper, please refer to the “GCSE Numeracy parental booklets” on our school website here.  Please choose the booklet which corresponds to the relevant tier your child is sitting.

In terms of the tiers pupils are sitting for this baseline, this will generally be a lower tier than the tier pupils will actually sit in the summer of 2025. This is because we’d like to assess pupils’ prior knowledge as part of this baseline, before teaching pupils the more challenging content.

If you would like any further information on this practice exam, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

Miss I Dunne                                                              

Raising Standards Leader for Mathematics and Numeracy