I sat Edexcel GCSE Maths in 2019 and scored 218 out of 240. A grade 9.
What I did was simple. There was no secret method. There was certainly no expensive course. The two things that mattered were one specific website and a willingness to actually use it.
This post is what I'd tell anyone serious about getting a top grade.
Maths is different to other subjects
Before I get to the method, one thing worth saying. Maths is probably the single best subject to get tutoring for at GCSE.
Most subjects reward memorisation and structured writing. You can blag a B in History or Religious Studies if you can write an essay. Maths doesn't work like that. You either understand it or you don't. If you don't understand simultaneous equations, no amount of past papers will save you. You have to go back and learn the underlying skill.
That's why one-to-one tutoring works so well for Maths. A good tutor can spot the exact concept your child is missing, fix it in 20 minutes, and unlock everything that depends on it.
If tutoring isn't an option, the alternatives that actually work are YouTube channels like Corbett Maths, Maths Genie, and HegartyMaths. AI tools like ChatGPT can also explain concepts surprisingly well now if your child gets stuck. None of these are as good as a tutor for spotting what's wrong, but they're miles better than nothing.
The one resource that actually moves grades
Once you understand a topic, the question is how you practise it. This is where almost everyone goes wrong.
The single best resource I've ever used for GCSE Maths is Dr Frost Maths (drfrostmaths.com).
For anyone who hasn't come across it: DFM is a free platform where you select the topics you want to work on, and it gives you random questions based on what you've picked. You can filter by difficulty, by exam board, by topic. As you get questions right, you level up. Get questions wrong on a topic you'd previously mastered, and you level back down. It's free.
The reason it works isn't complicated. It's because it forces you to retrieve the method from memory, on a random selection of questions, without warning. That's exactly how the actual exam works. Compare that to passively reading a textbook, where you're being walked through the steps. Two completely different skills.
Most schools already promote DFM. Most students ignore that advice and use it half-heartedly, if at all. That's the real difference between a 7 and a 9.
A short story about £20
This is genuinely true. At the start of Year 11 I was averaging 6s and 7s in Maths. Solid, but not where I wanted to be.
I told my teacher I'd get to the top of the school's DFM leaderboard. She said if I did, she'd give me £20.
I took that ridiculously seriously. I started grinding DFM most evenings, sometimes for an hour, sometimes longer. I didn't actually win the leaderboard in the end. But by the time the GCSE rolled around I'd done several thousand random Maths questions across every topic on the syllabus.
The point of telling you this isn't that I'm somehow gifted. The point is the opposite. I was nothing special at Maths in Year 11. The thing that took me from low 7s to a 218/240 was volume of practice on the right platform. That's it.
The mistake I see students make again and again
I've been tutoring Maths for four years now. There's a pattern I see constantly.
I'll teach a student quadratics. By the end of the lesson, they can answer questions independently. They get it. We finish the session feeling good.
The next week, I open a similar question and they look at it like they've never seen letters in a Maths problem before. Genuinely. Like the previous lesson didn't happen.
This is the most frustrating thing in tutoring. The student is capable. The parents are paying. The tutor has done their job. But the lesson is wasted because the student didn't do anything between sessions.
If I look back at the lesson reports I've sent over the years, the most common line, almost copy-pasted, is some version of this:
"Please practise this content independently before next week. Without it, this lesson won't translate to better grades."
Maths doesn't stick from one explanation. It sticks from doing 30 questions on the topic over the next few days, while the explanation is still fresh.
What I'd tell any GCSE Maths student
If I had to compress everything into one paragraph:
Get tutoring if you can. If you can't, use YouTube to learn topics you don't understand. Once you've understood something, drill it on Dr Frost Maths until you can do random questions on it without thinking. Do this consistently across the syllabus. By exam time, the questions will feel familiar because you've already seen versions of them.
The grade 9 students aren't doing anything magical. They're doing more practice on better platforms.
If you take one thing away from this post, let it be that. Get the practice in. Use Dr Frost Maths. Don't wait for a tutor to do the work for you.
Want help making it stick?
If you'd like a tutor who'll set proper independent practice between sessions and actually check whether your child is doing it, that's how we work. Worth a free conversation.
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