Functional Maths
Updated 23-Jul-2010
See below for full details of our AQA Functional Maths series. Meantime, here’s our author, Harry Smith, summarising everything in a short video – including what we’ve learnt from the Pilot phase, and what you can expect from our new ActiveTeach CD-Rom. Click on the image to play:
Longman author, Harry Smith, talks through our new AQA Functional Maths Student Book & ActiveTeach CD. Click to play.
What Resources will Longman be publishing?
Functional Maths sample: School Trip to Paris. Click to enlarge.
- NOW PUBLISHED – Student Book (£8.99, June 2010) covering Levels 1 & 2, filled with newspaper cuttings, timetables, maps, charts and other realia to bring maths into the real world
- ActiveTeach CD-ROM (£299, August 2010) shows the Student Book on-screen and comes packed with interactive resources including video clips, Grade Studio problem-solving activities, multilingual glossary and Examiner-Live
- Teacher Guide & editable CD-ROM (£124.99, July 2010) covering Levels 1&2, including complete practice papers, guidance on how to use AQA data sheets, as well as lesson plans and schemes of work
- NOW PUBLISHED – FREE Evaluation Pack (£0, June 2010), which will contain a free copy of the Student Book, along with an evaluation guide, summarising the whole series.
We are very excited about this qualification. It offers a fantastic opportunity for students to gather some important life skills, and a great opportunity for us to help them. Our guiding philosophy is to make sure the functional maths is taught in engaging, real-world contexts, while the underlying maths structure of the resources are clear. So we have chapters on choosing a mobile phone package, understanding credit card interest, as well as later chapters on deforestation (volume and area) and global warming (equations). But equally important is the presentation of the maths. The maths curriculum is covered in a logical order, and each chapter is sub-titled by mathematical topic. So teachers can see at a glance how to integrate our resources with their own maths course.
"Practise the Maths" sample: Understanding Data. Click to enlarge.
We are also taking care of those teachers who are not integrating Functional within their GCSE course. Each chapter contains a page spread of “Practise the Maths”, which gives students a recap of the basic maths needed for that chapter and a chance to practise the key techniques. It’s no substitute for a full maths course (there’s no way of fitting that inside a Functional Maths book), but it will help build students’ confidence before they plunge into Functional.
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