GCSE Maths Paper 1 Higher 2026 Edexcel – Full Review, Reaction & Grade Boundaries

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Hello everybody, welcome to this video.

[00:00:01]I'll be doing a review of the GCSE Maths Edexcel paper number one from 2026. As well as my own verdict on this paper, I'll be sharing with you the student community feedback, how you guys felt about it. I'll also be talking about the grade boundaries and what this could mean, and also what you should be preparing for papers two and three. So watch until the very end. Let's start with the general feedback from students, my own students and also from what I've seen online. Now, a lot of the students said that this paper was better than they expected. Some said it was an amazing paper. They came out of the exam feeling relieved. But there were still a few questions that kept coming up from students that they mentioned, and the main one was the histogram question. A lot of students mentioned that this was probably the most challenging question on this paper. Some students also mentioned the trig graph question, the similar shapes question, and a few questions where they knew how to start the question, but they didn't quite get to finish it or know how to finish it.

[00:00:52]And this is a very important point because for a lot of students, this paper wasn't difficult because the questions were completely shocking. It was difficult in places because you had to sort of know the topic, but you also had to understand it well enough to apply it in less familiar situations, which is what an exam paper would do to you for the very first time. One of my students told me that they struggled with the histogram and the sine graph, but they were happy because they followed the strategy that we had discussed, which was to secure the marks on the questions that you can do, that you knew how to do, instead of wasting too much time on questions that you weren't so sure about. Go back to those at the end. And that's exactly what you need to be doing on any GCSE Maths paper. You don't get bonus marks for spending 15 minutes looking at a question and suffering on this one question. If it's not working for you, move on, keep it moving. Go on, [clears throat] secure the marks on other questions and come back to that later on. Another student mentioned that the circle theorem proof was actually their favorite question, which was really nice to hear because for a lot of students, circle theorems can feel quite intimidating. But when you practice them properly, when you have practiced them properly, even a difficult topic like this becomes manageable. So overall, the student feedback was it was a great paper. It was definitely a fair paper.

[00:01:58]But of course the histogram question uh did cause some problems for some students. For accessibility, I would probably give you an eight out of 10.

[00:02:04]You had a nice calm opening to this paper and plenty of chances to bank marks. The overall difficulty, I would say is probably a 6.5 out of 10. It wasn't a horror paper as I've mentioned, it was fair, but it was still a higher paper. You can open up that paper and you can feel that this is a higher paper. Uh problem solving demand, I would probably give you a 7 out of 10.

[00:02:23]Several questions were layered and still required students to connect ideas together, which is what the demands of problem solving are. For algebra demand, algebra making up 55% of the entire math curriculum, I would probably give you a 7.5 out of 10 because algebra appeared through equations, uh it being graphs, in the inequality questions, in surds, and the proof style reasoning that you had to do uh for the circle theorem ones. Um for a grade seven and nine challenge for those students who are aiming for those grades, eights and nines really, I would probably give you a 7.5 out of 10. The histograms questions was there, the similarity questions with areas, lengths, and volumes was there. You had the trig graphs, you had surds, inequalities, and the proof. Those questions would separate uh the stronger student. Uh question by question, like I was mentioning, the beginning of the paper was a nice easy start to the paper with decimals, multiplication, you had your scatter graphs, you had the probability uh table, arithmetic sequences, very straightforward questions. Question number five, you know, inverse proportion. As long as you know what to do on the other side, that is the inverse thing, that should be okay. With these kind of questions, I always say to the students, "Look, see if your answer makes sense. Go and read the question again. If this many workers required this much time to do this thing, then if you have less or more workers, you know, does that reflect on that what you've been given at the beginning? Does that make sense?"

[00:03:37]So that's something that you should really uh be checking on yourself.

[00:03:40]Uh then you moved on to cuboid cuboid surface area and volume, which was you working backwards from the surface area to find the missing dimensions and then the volume, which was uh strong non-calculator arithmetic. Uh students may know the formula but still struggle uh with rearranging and the number work right there. With the exact trig value questions and connecting right-angle triangles, students, you know, if you know your SOH CAH TOA using the table or whatever, your fingers, whatever, then that should be quite straightforward for you. We had number 10, which was ratio fractions and percentages, a medium question there where you have to you got the ratio and you split it into the combined proportion. I feel that was good. Number 11, you had the algebra and the indices and the fractions, I think, which was something where you had to look at somebody else's working and spot what the error is.

[00:04:27]You've been the teacher there effectively.

[00:04:29]Number 12, inequality graphs. This I was asked by some students about whether they should draw dotted lines or solid line. Now, what I would say to about this is the examiners, I have seen, give marks whether it's a dotted line or solid line. And of course, a dotted line should be for less than or greater than and solid line should be for when it's equal to.

[00:04:48]They're more focused on whether you have drawn the line properly and shaded the correct region. So, don't panic if it's not a dotted or solid line. As long as you've drawn it correctly, I feel that this should should be okay.

[00:04:58]Question number 13 was recurring decimals to fraction, very straightforward if you've practiced that. It was a nice one. We have seen some horrible ones sometimes.

[00:05:06]And I don't think this one, let me just quickly check, did they ask you to put it in any particular form? Because sometimes, no, it didn't. Because sometimes they ask you to put it in a particular fraction and you have to simplify and sometimes it's quite hard to go from that to that. You don't know what to divide by. But this one doesn't do that. So, you can leave your answer as it is.

[00:05:23]Question 14, we had similar containers with the scale factors. Again, with this one, it was I mean, it was quite straightforward if you've practiced this, plenty of this. But linking volume to this might be quite tricky for some people. But the arithmetic, the non-calculator techniques that you have to use to find out how long something like this would take is going to be a test for some students. Particularly higher students, they don't really practice long division and multiplication much because they're always focusing on the higher end stuff and not the things at the lower level.

[00:05:52]Question 16, we had expanding triple brackets quite straightforward.

[00:05:56]Sometimes when a question says expand and just gives you the free brackets, it's okay but then when it says put it into this form some students just we just love getting confused with stuff, don't we? Um but it was it was the same thing really.

[00:06:08]Uh question 17, find the turning point from using complete the square. A nice question there. Um of course it's some students don't know how to read the final answer and give the correct thing making sure that you remember that the X one is the opposite sign then that can obviously throw some people off. They might just copy what they see in the completed square form. Number 18 was the recurrence relationship. We had to find the constant. This was very unusual.

[00:06:32]I'll tell you why because usually we have to find the next term and the next term and the next term or just find three terms and that's it give the answer. This one has some gaps and that might test some students there. Then we had number 19 the histogram. Now with the histogram lots my best students didn't even mention this. The problem with this one was it wasn't just about frequency density and you know drawing your bar or where you're given the bar and you have to fill in the missing data into the table or something like that.

[00:06:57]This was really testing your understanding of histograms to higher depth. And some students will get stuck with questions like this and connecting this with the other because you had something like where X is 10 more or something or something like this Y is 10 more than that. You have to set up some sort of equation there. So there's a lot happening there. You know your algebraic reasoning would really be tested there.

[00:07:16]You know you don't only have to know your histograms but you need to understand the maths that goes on behind the histograms to really understand this one. The interpretation of histograms.

[00:07:25]Question 20, we had trapezium area with surds where the trapezium formula for the area quite straightforward but then you know you have to use surds to expand things out. So this was really testing you on your expansion of surds.

[00:07:39]And the form was quite important because I think they asked you for a particular form. And I don't know, I haven't done the question, but maybe you have to rationalize in this somehow somewhere. With 21, you had the inequalities, and one of them both of them were quadratic, which normally we don't see much of, where we have two quadratics inequalities that we have to solve. We just normally get the one side and do that, and make sure you make sure you sketch the graph. So, sometimes you might have done the right thing, but you may have given the wrong final overall answer, because you don't understand if it's just greater than and inclusive of the other one or if it's an or. And that is something that you have to see from the final outcome once you've placed it correctly on whether a number line or on the graphs. And then we had question number 22, which was circle theorem, proving the alternate segment theorem. What I liked about this one, though, was normally when you're trying to prove something like this, you can't use any of the circle theorem rules, and we've seen those kind of questions before in the past papers and specimen papers. But this one you could use any of the circle theorems, it even says to you. So, I think it made it easier. So, yeah, that's my overall um feedback from the paper. Now, let's talk about the grade boundaries, because whenever a paper feels easy or fair, students come out the exam and immediately start asking questions like, "Does that mean that the grade boundaries are going to be higher this year?" Look, the honest answer is we can't judge grade boundaries from one paper. And really, you shouldn't even worry about the grade boundaries at this point, because grade boundaries are based on performance across the whole exam series, not just paper number one.

[00:09:07]So, papers numbers two and three are still very important and matter massively. So, if all three papers became accessible, then yes, the grade boundaries could go up. But if papers number two and papers number three are more challenging, and this is what I'm fearing based on this paper, then this changes the whole picture. So, really look, don't waste your energy trying to predict the final grade after this one paper. Grade boundaries are not decided by how you felt walking out this one exam. They're decided after all the students have sat all the exam papers, and the exam boards have looked at the overall performance of the students across the country. So, if paper one went well, brilliant, but don't get lazy. And if paper one didn't go as well for you as you had hoped, then don't panic because you're still in the game.

[00:09:48]There are still two papers left to do.

[00:09:51]2/3 of the mark, 67% rounded to the nearest integer. That's what you should be working on. So, let's talk about what you should be preparing and revising for next for papers two and three. Now, I've made a list of things um and also before I give you the Although stuff has appeared in papers number one, don't neglect them completely because algebra doesn't disappear. Ratio doesn't disappear. Problem solving doesn't disappear. These topics uh can return in different forms. Uh but based on this paper, if I was preparing for papers two and three, I would focus on things like ratio and proportion, compound uh percentages, reverse percentages, error intervals and bounds, you know, those kind of questions. Vectors, uh proof of vectors, functions, inverse functions, compound functions, transformations of shapes um and transformations of graphs perhaps. Probability trees and Venn diagrams, cumulative frequency and box plots, sine rule, cosine rule, sine area rule. Uh 3D Pythagoras and trigonometry, direct and inverse proportion, simultaneous equations, you know, that didn't come up at all. Quadratic graphs and interpret interpreting quadratic graphs, maybe or you know, finding the roots or another line that cuts through and you have to find what the roots are or the solutions.

[00:11:04]Uh standard form, calculating in standard form. Uh >> [snorts] >> bearings, uh low kind construction, those questions could be there. Plans and elevations, speed, density, and pressure formulas. Uh rearranging formulae and perhaps still more algebraic proof, even solving algebraic equations perhaps. Practice those topics, but remember don't try to revise the entire GCSE course from scratch. Make sure you practice your calculator skills, make them sharper for the next paper. So, my final message is this, paper one is now done, You can't change it now. If it went well for you, use that confidence properly. If it didn't go well for you, into reset. One paper isn't going to define your entire grade. Papers two and three are still to come, and there are lots of marks still to play for. So, revise strategically, stay calm, stay switched on, and onto the next paper, go in better prepared.

[00:11:50]Hope you enjoyed this video. Please do give it a like, and share it with anybody who hasn't seen it yet.