STAR Maths KS3 Classbook and Teaching Resources
Star Maths is a class book and accompanying resource pack intended to challenge able pupils in mathematics working at levels 6-8 of the national curriculum in KS3. The resource pack provides useful background about the approach taken by the authors and ways of using the pack, although the activities are only levelled very broadly according to the national curriculum.
The class book is attractively produced in colour and takes a topic-based approach to learning mathematics with the intention of enriching pupils’ mathematics learning. It is not clear, however, how complete the curriculum coverage is over the book as a whole or whether it could be used to provide a full programme for a class for a year. One difficulty with the book therefore is how one might integrate it into an existing scheme of work.
Each chapter takes the format of some closed exercises, written in an informal style, followed by more open-ended activities for pupils, which they are encouraged to present in a variety of different styles. Many of the activities and contents are ones many teachers will be familiar with, such as ‘tile transformations’, ‘car cost’ and ‘Egyptian maths’.
Other chapters do provide less familiar material to enrich the curriculum, such as the chapters on ‘logic puzzles’ and ‘seeing the lights’, which is a problem-solving activity about designing traffic lights at road junctions. Throughout the book there are lots of website references providing additional information for pupils’ projects. This book is a mixture of familiar material on core topics from the curriculum and some more imaginative enrichment materials for able pupils on other topics.
Ros Hyde
University of Southampton
This set consists of a teacher’s guide which contains photocopy masters and practical guidance on how to use the resources provided and a student book which contains the project notes. It’s printed in colour and laid out in a way which is appealing to the eye.
But “Challenging Able Students” – that’s quite a statement, does it manage it?
It seemed to me that the best way to see would be to try one of the projects with some students. My Year 9 class were about to start studying simultaneous equations so the project entitled Simultaneous Puzzles seemed ideal. The projects are set up so that the students can work through them at their own pace. Timings are provided for each section as well as a key identifying whether they should be attempting the work on their own, in pairs or in groups. The students really enjoyed the freedom of the project, a selection of their comments follow:
- “It made me feel really clever to be working it out for myself”
- “I liked being able to work at my own pace and still finish everything”
- “It was different to the normal textbook because there were less questions, but they were more challenging”
- “That was really fun can we use that book again”
Its projects are set up so that students gain the skills and move on quite quickly to a more advanced level. The students worked through the sections sensibly. No-one tried to move on until they were sure of the previous section and everyone was keen to help anyone who got slightly stuck – without doubt they enjoyed showing me that they’d managed to understand it. The classroom atmosphere for the 4 lessons we spent on the project was very positive. In response to the final comment made by one of the students -“It was indeed really fun and we will be using the book again!”
Karen Hancock
Assistant Head of Maths, Howard of Effingham School
STAR Maths KS3 classbook (£10) and Teaching Resources (£25) by Steve Mills and Hilary Coll
Letts Educational
The Chiswick Centre
414 Chiswick High Rd
London W4 5TF
Tel 020 8996 3333
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