New Maths for Gcse and Igcse Textbook Higher

I make no secret of the fact that I am a tiger mum. My daughter and son have both recently started at grammar school where the pace is pretty intense. So to keep up, I spend a small fortune on textbooks, practice books etc. Now I remember when I was in school (I spent my childhood and teen years in an Asian country well-known for its education and Pisa rankings) a zillion moons ago, I remember having thick serious looking textbooks as well as wads of practice papers for primary school leaving exams, O and A levels. So since my children started at secondary school, I have been looking for textbooks and workbooks. I must say that there appears to be a dearth of good textbooks available here - we initially bought a series recommended by the school is a well-known widely used one, a series which we also encountered in primary school. We were a bit unimpressed by the multi-coloured pages, jaunty cheerful and somewhat kiddy language and insufficient number of practice questions. This ONE however, is very good. It has very clear examples but the best thing to me are three fold: first, it takes a step-by-step approach. Basically it starts off with very basic examples of the initial stages in a mathematical operation, before moving on slowly to add on more complex layers. Each time, a new concept or layer of difficulty is added, a generous helping of practice questions are offered, which also range from easy to difficult. Just look at the sample pages given here on calculations, starting with BODMAS, then negative numbers, then decimals. At each stage you have targeted questions just simply focused on each of these before mixing all up and jazzing up the questions to incorporate all of these into single questions. For example look at Q2 under section 7 mixed exercise on page 5 - bodmas, negative numbers and decimals all in one. The second good thing about this, is simply the sheer number of practice questions, each one with enough variety to test the child. Finally, there are no distracting colours or silly pictures. Great - highly recommended!

Superb step step information great

Muy bien y me han entregado el libro perfecto y pronto

I'm a specialist mathematics teacher with 10 years experience, as key stage 4 (GCSE) coordinator my previous school's GCSE mathematics A* to C improved from 67% to 90%. I'm a parent of a year 12 and a year 10 and my current main employment is private tuition. So my review is primarily viewed as a private tutor then parent then teacher. I came accross this book through one of my tutees who attends a very prestigious private school, it's her class text book. I really like this text book. It is ideal for students who understand that examination success is gained through hard work, who are behaving and concentrating in lessons and need additional practice. The book is structured as any good maths text book should be: examples followed by graded exercises with lots of skills practice followed by questions in context, problem solving questions and reasoning questions. I like the fact that for a difficult topic like completing the square there are 100 questions of skills practice. Some students may only need to attempt 10 before they have mastered the topic others may need to complete 80 questions but unlike other text books the student is not going run out practice questions. Once the skills have been mastered only then can the student attempt context, problem solving or reasoning questions. The answers are in the back and there's an index which is of vital importance for revision. The book is written in small font utilising one colour other than black, this is why is it such value for money. I've bought two thirds of the equivalent offering from Pearson (the whole package of large text book and two supplementary books costs around £36) but the answers to the supplementary books are not provided and there's limited practice in the main text book (one the plus side, there is lots of colour). It appears that English state schools are moving away from using maths text books, a big mistake in my opinion. Hard working students who are unfortunate to be taking GCSE mathematics at such schools would benefit hugely from using this book to supplement their mathematics education. I wouldn't recommend this book as a self teaching aid to students who are struggling.

This textbook has loads of great practice questions inside covering (I think) pretty much all topics you need for your GCSE. It explains concepts easily and effectively while also containing questions that increase in difficulty. The font is a good size and easy to read. I typically use this textbook to revise and it's great. Honestly, I think this textbook would help you no matter which exam board you've chosen. It's definitely value for money when you consider the quality (sturdiness of the textbook and smooth thick paper) and the content. My only complaint is because of how heavy the textbook is it can be hard to keep open (sometimes i'll take a picture of the questions and work from there) and that there isn't a digital version included in the purchase.