GCSE & 11+ Maths Topic Checklist
Track your child's progress through every GCSE maths topic, from Grade 1 to Grade 9
The 11 plus maths topics in full
This checklist covers 256 maths topics from Grade 1 to Grade 9. 134 of them are also tested in the 11 plus, and those 134 are listed here in full: 49 in Number, 4 in Ratio & Proportion, 20 in Algebra, 43 in Geometry & Measures, 18 in Statistics. Tick them off in the checklist above, or work through them in order with the free practice questions.
Number 49 topics
- Place value up to ten million
- Sort and order numbers
- Addition and subtraction
- 12×12 times table fluency (25 questions in 90 seconds)
- Short division with 2-digit numbers
- Factor pairs
- Use >, <, =
- Negative numbers (recognition and basic use)
- Listing factors and multiples
- Writing, simplifying and ordering fractions
- Decimal place value
- Round to whole numbers, powers of 10 and decimals
- Long multiplication
- Mental addition and subtraction methods (3-digit)
- Using a calculator
- Fractions of amounts
- Recognise % as 'parts per hundred'
- Finding simple percentages (10%, 25%, 50% etc.)
- Simple FDP equivalents
- Money problems
- Know squares to 15² and cubes to 5³
- Multiplication tricks (using factors, nearest to)
- Short division with decimal answers
- Converting between fractions, decimals and percentages (FDP)
- Round to significant figures
- Order positive and negative integers and decimals
- All four operations with fractions
- Converting between mixed numbers and improper fractions
- Increase and decrease by a fraction
- Finding any whole number percentage
- Percentage increase and decrease
- Writing and simplifying ratio
- Bills, change and best value
- Exchange rates
- Estimating
- Error intervals
- Multiply and divide by 10, 100 and 1,000
- Square roots up to √225 and cube roots up to ∛125
- One amount as a percentage of another
- Multiples, factors and prime numbers
- Identify primes to 150
- LCM and HCF (including worded problems)
- Product of prime factors and prime factor trees
- Converting imperial units
- Understanding recurring decimals
- Reverse fractions of amounts
- Standard form (including converting to and from)
- Reverse percentages
- Compound and repeated percentages
Ratio & Proportion 4 topics
- Proportion ingredients questions
- Share in a given ratio
- Equivalent ratios and unitary ratios
- Part to part and part to whole
Algebra 20 topics
- Order of operations (BIDMAS)
- Function machines
- Algebraic notation (reading and writing basic expressions)
- Collecting like terms
- Solving one-step equations
- Sum-product problems: find two numbers with a given sum and product
- Systematic listing strategies
- Substitution (basic)
- Solving equations (two-step and multi-step)
- Sequences: linear and geometric patterns (recognition)
- Drawing linear graphs
- Form expressions and solve 3-step equations
- Solve equations with unknowns on both sides
- Linear sequences (generate, recognise and nth term)
- Is a number in the sequence?
- Algebraic vocabulary
- Substitution in formulae
- Missing angles with algebra (form equations from angle facts)
- Real life and distance-time graphs
- Simultaneous equations (graphically and algebraically)
Geometry & Measures 43 topics
- Right angles and full turns
- Acute, obtuse and reflex angles
- Recognise 2D and 3D shapes (up to decagon)
- Simple line symmetry
- Simple translation
- Perimeter (basic)
- Area of rectangles and squares
- Use 12 and 24-hour time
- Convert units of time
- Metric conversions
- Properties of 2D and 3D shapes
- Identify and match nets of 3D shapes
- Angles at a point and on a straight line
- Line symmetry
- Translation on a coordinate grid
- Reflection in axes
- Rotation (basic)
- Coordinates in all four quadrants
- Perimeter of compound shapes
- Reading scales
- Area of triangles and parallelograms
- Radius and diameter of a circle
- Draw and measure angles
- Find missing angles at a point, straight line and vertically opposite
- Rotational symmetry
- Rotations
- Reflections
- Enlargements
- Translations
- Area of trapezia
- Volume of prisms
- Identify 3D shapes
- Calculate time durations, timetables and elapsed time
- Coordinates: vertical and horizontal lines on graphs
- Scale drawings and maps
- Area and circumference of circles
- Area of compound shapes
- Angles in polygons
- Scale factors
- Surface area of cuboids
- Symmetry on coordinate grids
- Midpoints and patterns on graphs
- Speed, distance and time
Statistics 18 topics
- Pictograms and tally charts
- Single-step word problems
- Bar charts
- Pie charts (reading)
- Frequency polygons
- Stem and leaf
- Mean, median, mode and range
- Basic probability and probability scale
- Time series graphs
- Sorting into sets (Venn diagrams: introduction)
- Two-way tables and reading data
- Reverse mean
- Calculate probabilities
- Two-set Venn diagrams
- Multi-step word problems
- Venn diagrams (including three-set)
- Multiple event probability
- Mixed topic word problems
Auditing what your child actually knows
Most revision plans are built on a feeling. The child says they are bad at algebra, so algebra gets revised, and the marks do not move because the real gap was somewhere else. A checklist replaces the feeling with a list, and a list can be worked through.
How to use it honestly
Go through topic by topic and mark each one green, amber or red. Two rules make the difference between a useful audit and a comfortable one:
- The child marks it, not you. Your assessment of what they know is a guess. Theirs is at least a report from inside the room.
- Green means could do it right now, cold, in a test. Not "we covered it" and not "I would remember with a reminder". That distinction is the entire value of the exercise.
Expect more ambers than anyone is comfortable with the first time. That is the point. An honest amber is worth more than a hopeful green.
Reading the pattern rather than the count
The number of reds matters less than where they cluster. Clusters tell you what is really going on:
| Where the reds cluster | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| Fractions, percentages, ratio | One underlying problem, not three. Usually division or proportional reasoning. |
| Anything algebraic | Often negative numbers and substitution underneath |
| Shape and space only | Usually spatial visualisation, which is trainable |
| Scattered evenly with no pattern | More often retention or confidence than knowledge |
| Only the grade 7 to 9 topics | Normal, and the right place to be spending time |
Working the cluster rather than the individual topics is faster and it holds, because you are fixing the cause instead of the symptoms.
Turning the audit into three weeks of work
Do not try to fix everything. Pick three reds that sit early in the dependency chain, work those until they are amber, then re-audit those three specifically.
Re-auditing the same three is the step people skip, and it is the only way to know whether the work did anything. An overall score moves for all sorts of reasons. A named topic going from red to green is evidence.
Our interactive lessons are sequenced for this, starting at the genuinely basic version of a topic and stepping up in tiers, so a student can go back a stage without it feeling like a demotion.
Re-run it every term
A checklist is a snapshot, not a document. Run it at the start of each term and keep the old copies.
The comparison is what motivates a student who cannot otherwise see progress. Anxiety is very good at deleting improvement from memory, and a stack of dated checklists is difficult to argue with.
Questions parents ask
Which grades does the checklist cover?
Grades 1 to 9, so it works for Foundation and Higher tier and for 11+ preparation at the lower end.
For 11+ specifically, most of the relevant content sits in the grade 1 to 5 range.
My child marks everything green. What now?
Test three of the greens with a real exam question. Optimistic self-assessment is normal and it collapses quickly when a question is put in front of them.
After that the marking usually becomes much more honest, and that conversation is worth more than the checklist itself.
Is this the same as a past paper?
No, and they do different jobs. A paper tests a sample of topics under pressure. A checklist covers everything and tells you what has not been tested at all.
Use the checklist to choose what to work on and the papers to check whether it worked.