OCR GCSE Maths Higher formulae sheet: A complete guide

If you're sitting OCR GCSE Maths Higher tier (specification J560) in 2027, there's one awkward thing you should know about before you start revising. The spec itself is quite firm on this: 'The assessment for this specification will not include a formula sheet. All formulae which learners are required to know are given in the specification under 6.02d. All other formulae required will be given in the assessment.' That was the plan when OCR designed the 2015 spec.

In practice you will get a sheet. OCR has issued a supplementary formulae sheet with every GCSE Maths paper since 2022, under Ofqual's temporary provision for post-pandemic exam recovery. Ofqual's May 2026 decision confirmed the sheet carries on for the lifetime of the current specifications. So the spec text and the exam-day reality say different things, and the Ofqual provision is the one that counts.

If someone has quoted the spec body at you saying OCR has 'no formula sheet', they aren't wrong about what's written down, but they're describing a world that stopped existing in 2022. You will get a sheet. The rest of this guide walks through what's on it, what section 6.02d still expects you to remember, and where it overlaps with Edexcel and AQA.

The sheet you'll sit with is the Ofqual-sanctioned supplementary insert, issued with every J560 paper from the 2022 series onwards. OCR publishes the current year's PDF on the J560 qualification page.

You get it in all three Higher papers (Paper 4, Paper 5 and Paper 6), including Paper 5, the non-calculator one. Each OCR Maths paper is 100 marks, not 80 like Edexcel or AQA, so the pool is 300 marks across the series.

The practical effect is that the spec's old line between 'formulae in 6.02d that students must recall' and 'formulae given in the question' is softer than it was pre-2022. The quadratic formula, the sine rule and the cosine rule are all still in the 6.02d list, and they're all now printed on the sheet. The spec still expects you to use and rearrange them, it just doesn't ask you to pull them out of memory under exam conditions.

The current OCR Higher sheet mirrors section 6.02d plus the Ofqual-provision items. Check OCR's assessment-resources page for the current year's PDF before you revise with it; what's below reflects what's been on the sheet in recent series.

The sheet doesn't let you off 6.02d. OCR is clear that students have to be able to use and rearrange those formulae under exam conditions, and the sheet only changes whether you pull them from memory or read them off a page. Beyond 6.02d the spec has a longer recall list across the full content tables, and it's worth going through it before you walk in.

Circumference and area of a circle are the ones to anchor on. OCR lists C = 2πr = πd and A = πr² in the 'Initial learning' column, expected of every student, Foundation and Higher. Both are also printed on the sheet, which should tell you how often they come up.

Pythagoras (a² + b² = c²) and the basic trig ratios (SOHCAHTOA) sit under 6.02d in the Foundation column, so you've already met them. Both the ratios and Pythagoras are on the sheet.

Area of a trapezium = ½(a + b)h, area of a parallelogram = base × height, and volume of a prism = area of cross-section × length all live in the content tables (10.03 and 10.04). Trapezium area and prism volume are on the current sheet; the parallelogram formula isn't, so learn that one as a standard result and don't go looking for it on exam day.

Straight-line geometry (y = mx + c, gradient = (y₂ − y₁) / (x₂ − x₁), midpoint and distance between two points) is derivation territory, not sheet content.

Algebra fundamentals, laws of indices, completing the square, surds and inequalities, are expected content, not sheet content.

Sequence rules, the nth-term rules for arithmetic and quadratic sequences and the common ratios for geometric sequences, are also derivation and recall rather than sheet territory.

The three sheets are governed by the same DfE subject content and the same Ofqual provision, so at the content level they overlap heavily. The differences are presentational and structural.

OCR's spec is the only one of the three that still states 'no formula sheet' outright. AQA and Edexcel also had no sheet before 2022, giving formulae within questions, see the AQA 8300 spec. The current sheet is strictly an Ofqual-provision overlay. It mirrors AQA's content closely, with different section labels and sometimes different ordering. The current GCSE Maths formula sheet is the common Ofqual-specified set, printed with every paper from 2022 onwards. Pearson's pre-2022 Appendix 3 (the cone and sphere formulae) is no longer the live reference; those formulae are now given in the question. Our general GCSE Maths formulae sheet guide covers the shared core content and the subtle delta across boards.

For exam day, print your own board's current PDF and revise with it. Students who do a lot of cross-board practice sometimes end up with AQA's or Edexcel's layout stuck in their heads, and then lose a few seconds on OCR's paper because the ordering isn't quite the same.

Treat the sheet as a working tool from question one, not a last-resort reference. If you only reach for it when you're stuck, you'll lose time hunting; if you glance at it from the start of the paper, you'll find things in a fraction of the time.

Print OCR's current PDF for J560 and physically slot it next to every past paper you sit at home. Reach across, find the formula, come back to the question. By the time you've done five or six papers like that, you'll know roughly where each formula lives on the sheet and your eye will go to it automatically.

For the Higher-only trig formulae, draw the triangle and label sides and angles before choosing between sine rule and cosine rule. The sheet gives you both, but it doesn't tell you which one fits. The pattern-recognition is on you.

Write each formula out before substituting numbers. Even with the sheet in front of you, examiners award a method mark for setting the formula up correctly. Students who jump straight from the question to the arithmetic sometimes drop that mark on arithmetic they later get wrong.

Rearrange on paper, not in your head. The sheet gives you one form of each equation; the question often wants a different subject. Writing out the rearranged version before the numbers go in feels slower than doing it mentally, but it's much more reliable under exam pressure.

Memorise the short recall items anyway. Circle circumference and area, Pythagoras, trapezium area, because glancing to the sheet for these costs you time you don't need to spend. The sheet is a backup for the awkward formulae, not a replacement for fluency on the common ones. Our grade-9 GCSE Maths guide covers formula fluency and the exam-technique patterns that go with it.

If your revision runs on structured lessons rather than reading the spec cover to cover, Cognito's OCR GCSE Maths Higher course walks through every formula on your sheet with worked examples. The quadratic formula, sine rule, cosine rule and ½ab sin C each have a video lesson plus a quiz block that tests you on when to apply which. The kinematics equations aren't on the sheet (OCR prints them in any question that needs them), but if you want the setup practice they're covered in the applied-maths topic area.

The formulae you still need to recall, straight-line geometry, laws of indices, completed-square form, surds, nth-term rules and the parallelogram area, are covered under Geometry and Algebra. Working through those alongside your print-out of the sheet is the fastest route to being quick with the formulae you have and fluent on the ones you don't. For broader exam-day pacing, our hardest GCSE Maths questions guide covers the question types where formula fluency matters most.