Your Maths Portfolio already holds weeks of personal-finance and healthy-life work. Today you turn that folder into the start of a Key Assignment. The first move is simple and it is permanent: pick one focus (personal finance or healthy life skills) and name the pieces that prove you framed the problem before you started calculating.
That first stage is called Finding out. Without it, the rest of the KA has nothing to hang on.
Three ideas hold this workshop together. Finding out is a stage with a job, the case-study focus is a one-time choice, and the Finding Out index is the page that makes both of those visible to your teacher and to the SEC.
| Concept | Why it matters | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Finding out – the first stage of the SEC 5-stage cycle: frame the problem, list what you do not know, decide what information is needed and where to look | A KA with no Finding out evidence looks like a pile of calculations with no brief. SEC wants to see the question before the answer | Your MA3 Brief naming a savings goal, plus the first list of fixed and variable expenses you still had to cost, are Finding out pieces |
| Case-study focus – the single MA3 area you choose to evidence: personal finance or healthy life skills | Mixing both areas in one KA muddies the story. One focus means every later stage points at the same goal | Pick personal finance and the KA draws on budget, bills and product comparisons; healthy-life charts stay in the portfolio but out of this KA |
| Portfolio index – a cross-referenced list of portfolio items against each of the five case-study stages | It is how you and your teacher check, at a glance, that every stage is covered before the KA is signed off | The MA3 KA: Finding Out page names two or three items by title with one sentence each saying why that piece is Finding out evidence |
Two students finished MA3 with full portfolios. One is going the personal-finance route. The other is going the healthy-life route. Read both routes on the board. Use them to see what counts as Finding out and what does not, before you open your own folder.
Now do the same job on your own Maths Portfolio. Open the folder, choose one focus, and shortlist 2–3 pieces that belong in Finding out.
Use your own Maths Portfolio. Stay inside one focus only. Aim for 2–3 items, each with a one-sentence justification draft.
Work through these in order:
Your shortlist only becomes Key Assignment evidence when it is written onto the Finding Out index. This page is the first of five stage pages in the MA3 KA folder.
Instructions: Copy your chosen focus at the top. Then list your Finding out pieces — up to three. Name each one by the title it already carries in your folder, and under it write one sentence saying why it evidences Finding out. Two strong pieces are better than three, so do not invent one to make up the number.
Work each row in order onto a fresh page in your Maths Portfolio. Show the working, not just the answer.
Write these down the page, leaving room under each for your answer:
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