Badger Key Stage 4 Maths Starters
This is a really good idea - a book with starter ideas for year 11. I’m sure I’m not alone in sometimes struggling to find something interesting for my classes to do at the start of lessons. This book contains 78 ideas, with a teacher’s page giving questions and the additional CD contains all the contents of the book in easy to use formats for those teachers fortunate enough to have a projector.
But, sadly, the ideas aren’t really exciting enough. Multiplying and dividing fractions offers two circles - one split into quarters and the other into sixths. A page on ratio gives a page with 12 boxes, each with a ratio in them. The accompanying questions are quite good, but more questions than answers and not quite enough help.
So a little disappointing really - for a teacher to go to the effort of finding the right page and copying to OHT or preparing electronically these ideas just don’t seem to be exciting enough. There are very few illustrations and the examples given are of reasonable quality but not really worth the trouble - and certainly not worth the price tag.
Peter Hall • Imberhorne School, East Grinstead
Brian Fillis: Badger Key Stage 4 Maths Starters: Year 11
Badger Publishing (2006)
ISBN: 1844246426
Price: £49.50 + £3.50 VAT
