Online National 5 Maths tutor

Who National 5 tuition is for

National 5 is the first Maths course where the working matters as much as the answer. Pupils who did well in S3 by spotting answers quickly often find their marks drop, because each step now carries its own mark. Tuition helps most if:

• a pass is close but not secure, and you want it to be safe;
• your child is aiming for an A to keep Higher Maths open;
• one area, often algebra or trigonometry, keeps pulling marks down;
• the prelim went badly and the final exam is a few months away.

What the National 5 Maths exam looks like

There is no coursework. The grade comes from two question papers sat in the spring exam diet, both set and marked by Qualifications Scotland (formerly SQA).

That's 90 marks in total. Paper 1 is where many pupils lose marks they could have kept, because the arithmetic (fractions, percentages, surds and indices) has to be done by hand and there's very little time to check it.

Topics we cover

Lessons follow the National 5 Mathematics course specification. The main areas are:

• Expressions and formulae

  • Surds and indices
  • Scientific notation
  • Expanding and factorising
  • Completing the square
  • Algebraic fractions
  • Gradient, arcs and sectors
  • Volumes of solids

• Relationships

  • Equations and inequations
  • Straight-line equations
  • Simultaneous equations
  • Changing the subject
  • Quadratic graphs and the discriminant
  • Pythagoras and similarity
  • Trigonometric graphs and equations

• Applications

  • Sine rule, cosine rule and triangle area
  • Bearings
  • 2D and 3D vectors
  • Percentages, appreciation and depreciation
  • Fractions and mixed numbers

• Statistics

  • Mean, median and interquartile range
  • Standard deviation
  • Scattergraphs and lines of best fit
  • Comparing data sets in words

Where National 5 pupils usually lose marks

• Non-calculator arithmetic. Dividing mixed numbers, or finding a percentage of an amount by hand, under time pressure.
• Missing working. A correct final answer with no working can score less than a wrong answer with clear steps.
• Trigonometric equations. Finding one angle and missing the second solution between 0° and 360°.
• Reasoning questions. Questions that end with "justify your answer" need a sentence that compares two numbers. Many pupils calculate correctly and then don't say what the numbers show.
• Rounding too early. Rounding halfway through a sine or cosine rule question changes the final answer.

Saba's guide to how the National 5 Maths papers work goes through these with examples.

What lessons look like

Each one-hour lesson mixes teaching with exam-style questions on the topics from your assessment plan. Between lessons there is a short piece of work, marked against the official marking instructions so you can see exactly where each mark comes from. After each lesson parents receive a short note: what was covered, what was set, and what comes next.

Closer to the exam, lessons move to full timed papers and to the formulae list printed at the front of each paper, so nothing on exam day is unfamiliar.

National 5 Maths questions