What is an independent student account?
If you're a student, you can create a free independent student account on our platform in order to use the tools and resources we have available to support your learning outside of school. It's perfect for students learning at their own pace and those preparing for exams.
With an independent student account, you can:
- Watch our videos to learn different maths skills.
- Answer questions online to practise specific topics.
- Try our online past papers to prepare for exams.
- Track your learning by following a course designed around your specific exam or curriculum.
- Access lesson slides and exercise sheets to support your revision.
Does your school already use Dr Frost? If so, check with your teacher before creating an independent student account, as they can help you get set up with your school account instead.
Jump to:
- How do I set up an independent student account?
- What's the best way to learn using an independent student account?
How do I set up an independent student account?
- Go to www.drfrost.org and click Register Now:
- Click Sign up now under 'I'm a student learning independently':
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Enter your personal email address rather than your school email address. This helps avoid any complications if your school starts using Dr Frost Maths in the future!
When you click Continue, this will send a registration email to the address you entered. Open the email, click the link, and follow the on-screen instructions to set up your account.
What's the best way to learn using an independent student account?
Choosing a course
The best way to learn with an independent student account is usually to work through one of our courses.
Our courses are collections of questions, videos, and exam practice, organised according to a particular specification, curriculum, or scheme of learning. For example, our AQA GCSE Mathematics (Higher) course contains questions, vidoes, and exam practice covering everything required for the AQA GCSE Mathematics (Higher) exams. This makes it easier to find work that's relevant to what you're studying.
You can work through a course to help make sure you've covered everything you need for your exam or the stage of learning you're working towards.
You can find our courses by going to the Menu in the top left, then selecting Courses.
At the bottom of the courses page, click View all published courses.
You can scroll down this page to look for the right course for you, or use the 'Filter by name...' box to search our courses by name.
If you're working towards a specific qualification, such as GCSE or A Level Maths, we'd recommend following the course for your qualification. For example, if you're sitting the AQA GCSE Mathematics (Higher) exams, this course will help you find the relevant questions, videos, and exam practice.
If you're in primary or lower secondary school, our White Rose Maths courses are a great place to start. They follow the UK curriculum from Year 1 to Year 11. We also have courses based on the national curricula of lots of different countries, so have a browse through our courses to find the one that best matches what you're studying!
Once you've clicked on a course, it will then come up in your Recently viewed on the courses page so you can easily find it again!
Understanding your course
Once you've chosen a course from our selection of published courses, click on it to open it.
There are a few different things within a course to explore, so let's go through it one section at a time!
Modules and Units
On the left, you can see all the modules and units within the course. In this example, the modules are organised by term, so they are called Autumn, Spring, and Summer. You can click on each module to expand it and see the units it contains.
Each unit, such as Sequences, is shown in blue. Click on a unit to jump straight to it in the course.
Skills, Subskills, and Exam Practice
Within each unit, there are skills, such as skill 135 Introduction to sequences.
Every skill has a number, like 135.
TIP - if you're looking for something specific, you can search for skill numbers and names in the search bar at the top of the page.
Each skill contains a collection of exam practice questions.
These are questions that have appeared on past exam papers that test that particular skill.
Click Example to see what these questions look like.
Each skill is divided into smaller sections called subskills, which are denoted by a number and letter (e.g. 135a). These cover specific mathematical techniques or concepts, helping you break a topic down into smaller, more manageable parts.
To see example questions for a subskill, click Example. You can also watch a video for each subskill by clicking the video icon .
TIP - Try learning and practising each subskill individually first, then use the exam practice questions to practise combining different skills and applying what you've learnt to exam-style questions.
Starting a practice
To get started, select the subskills or exam practice questions you want to try. You can start at the beginning of the course and work through it in order, or choose specific areas you'd like to practise, whatever you prefer!
As you make your selection, the Your selection panel will display what you've selected.
Once you have selected what you want to practice, click the blue Practise button and the practice options will appear.
Fixed Number of Questions
Choose Fixed number of questions if you want to answer a set number of questions. Use the dropdown menu (which shows 10 by default) to choose how many questions you'd like to answer.
You can also choose whether to use differentiation, interleaving, or neither.
Differentiation: The difficulty of the questions adapts to how you're doing. If you answer questions correctly, you'll be given more challenging questions for that skill. If you find them difficult, you'll be given easier questions.
Interleaving: Questions from your selected subkills and/or exam practice are presented in a mixed order, rather than the order you selected them in.
Neither: Questions from your selected subskills and/or exam practice are presented in the order you selected them.
Accuracy Required to Finish
Choose Accuracy required to finish if you want to keep practising each subskill until you're getting the questions right often enough to meet the target.
By default, you'll need to get at least 4 out of the last 5 questions correct on each subskill. You can change both numbers using the dropdown menus to make your target easier or harder.
With interleaving: Questions from your selected subkills and/or exam practice are presented in a mixed order, rather than the order you selected them in.
Without interleaving: Questions from your selected subskills and/or exam practice are presented in the order you selected them.
Keep Going Until I Say
Choose Keep going until I say if you want to keep answering questions until you decide to finish the practice yourself.
Questions will be shown according to the order you selected the subskills and/or exam practice.
Cleanup Practices and 'What to work on next?'
If you're not sure what to practise next, you can take a look at the suggested skills on your dashboard. These are skills you haven't tried yet, or haven't practised much, so it's a great way to build on skills you've already worked on or to find something new to learn next!
To practise one of these skills, you can search for it using the search bar at the top of the page. Click on the skill to find it in our All Skills course, where you can select it to start a practice.
Another great way to practise the skills you've been learning is with Cleanup practices. To start one, click Start a Practice in the What to work on next? section of your dashboard, then choose Cleanup. This will give you four questions that you've answered incorrectly recently, helping you practise them again and get more confident.
Practicing past papers
If you're studying for your GCSEs, you can use our GCSE Revision Hub to practise past papers. For more information, watch our video from Dr Jamie Frost's here: New Student GCSE Revision Tools! - Article for Students
If you're studying for A Levels or another qualification, you can find our full collection of past papers by going to the Menu in the top-left corner and selecting All Past Papers.
On this page, you can click through the folders to find the past paper you want to practice.
Once you've found the a past paper you want to try, click Practice This Worksheet to get started!
Other resources
If you are looking for some ready-made sets of questions to practice, then you might like our Topic Tests and Revision worksheets.
To find them, go to the Menu in the top-left corner and select All Past Papers.
On the left-hand side of the page, select Revision to find revision worksheets for different qualification levels, or choose Topic Tests to find mini tests of eight questions on a range of topics.
You can also find all of our downloadable lesson resources by scrolling down to the bottom of your dashboard and clicking Lesson Resources. Here, you can find all the lesson slides and exercise sheets we have for different topics. You can download these and view them on your device, or print them out if you'd like to!
Tracking your progress
There are a few different ways to keep track of your progress as you practise more skills and answer more questions.
Viewing your progress on your course page
If you go back to the course page, you will be able to see your recent accuracy for the skills you've been working on.
You can also see your mastery level for each skill.
This is a score out of 100 that shows how close you are to mastering that skill.
Your mastery score increases when you answer questions correctly and decreases when you answer questions incorrectly.
Viewing your progress on your progress page
To see your Progress page, go to the menu in the top left and select Progress Data.
Your Progress page gives you an overview of your activity on Dr Frost Maths. Some figures, such as Teacher set tasks, are only relevant for students with school-connected accounts, rather than independent student accounts.
For an independent student account, the most useful figures to look at are:
- Independent practices: The number of practices you've completed, including past papers and Cleanup practices.
- Total questions answered: The total number of questions you've answered.
- Total points earned: The total number of points you've earned. You earn between 2 and 5 points for each question you answer, depending on its difficulty.
- Video watch time: The total time you've spent watching videos on Dr Frost Maths.
- Current total mastery: The combined mastery scores for all the skills you've been working on.
TIP: You can change the date range to see your progress over a different period.
You can also click the Activity tab to see a list of the practices you've completed and the scores you achieved.
Click the blue links, such as 135 Exam Practice: Introduction to sequences, to view a practice in more detail and review any questions you got wrong.