What the Foundations Check found, and the order to fix it in
This is not another list of guides — it is the order to fix things in. Every guide named here is also in the syllabus list; what this page adds is which one matters most, and why.
You scored 61 out of 77 on the Foundations Check in August, and the score is the least interesting part. Number sense and the four operations came back solid on all seven steps — right up to Extended level, with no gap anywhere. That is a real asset, and it rules out the thing people usually assume.
What the check actually found is two loose bricks sitting above that solid arithmetic. Fix those two and a good deal of what currently feels hard gets easier on its own.
| Indices & standard form | broke at step 2 (age 11–12) · E1.3, E1.7, E1.8, E1.9 — all four high non-calculator risk |
| Algebraic manipulation | broke at step 3 (age 13–14) · E2.1, E2.2, E2.4 |
| Ratio and proportion | broke at step 5 · E1.11, E1.12 |
| Coordinates and gradient | broke at step 5 · E3.3, E3.5, E3.6 |
Everything else broke at step 6 or 7, which is Extended level and exactly where it should be. Also worth knowing: 5 answers you were sure about were wrong, and sign errors turned up in more than one topic. Both are dealt with in the guides below.