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 choices) 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.
| Concept | Why it matters | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Finding out – the first stage of the module descriptor's 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. The case study shows 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 choices | 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:
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