The Maths Matters lessons suite is written by practising mathematics teachers and specifically designed for whole-class teaching of Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4, IGCSE and Additional Maths syllabuses. Maths Matters brings interactivity and excitement to the classroom with animations, stunning images, excellent cross-curricular references and a huge bank of starter questions. It is already the most comprehensive teaching resource available. It is truly enormous containing over 14,000 PowerPoint slides, as well as integral interactive tasks, video and Flash libraries, videos for introducing topics and for tutorials, Flash pop-ups to allow pupils’ responses to be entered and used to continue with the working of a problem; in all, nearly 2GB of material. But that is not the complete story; embedding sophisticated programming within the slides means that some individual Maths Matters slides allow an infinite number of interactive problems, such as enlargement, to be represented and solved, in a way that is impossible with simple PowerPoint products.

There are 400 3- and 4- part lessons on 3 CD-ROMs in the current release but the number of lessons increases regularly. Maths Matters is under continuous development and all school users are automatically updated with new releases. Our goal is a lesson in Maths Matters for every entry in a school’s scheme of work, at the appropriate level - with a detailed lesson plan, worksheet and homework task to accompany it. Our promise to our users is if you don’t find a lesson in Maths Matters for the appropriate level, we will write it for you within the price of the licence fee.

From the outset, Maths Matters has been designed to provide as many as possible of the resources that a classroom teacher requires in a very easy-to-use format. It is beautifully illustrated and all of the artwork is original. It is lesson-based rather than simply topic-based. Lessons have very specific objectives and are geared to a particular year group and a particular ability level within that year group. Successive examples show progression within each lesson and within each sequence of lessons and, similarly, there is progression from one year group to another, exactly as you would expect. Material for year-8 pupils, for example, is different from that for year-7 pupils, so there is no need for repetition. This gives maximum flexibility while grouping together all the appropriate material that supports the objectives of the lesson.

Every lesson has suggested starter questions, a title slide, objectives, a level, key words slide, review of related material, one- or two-part exposition with worked examples, a summary of the teaching points to end the lesson and, usually an additional plenary activity. Within each example, detailed explanations and working are provided at every step and the more complex calculations are shown on a model calculator. Where there is more than one accepted method for solving problems, each alternative method is available. Proofs are given for all theorems and, where appropriate, the derivations of formulae are shown. The attention to detail can be seen throughout, from the use of a calming background colour to the consistent use of colour conventions within the slides; from the careful balance between compressing video to reduce storage requirements, whilst maintaining sharpness of the image, to the painstaking editing and filtering to ensure the clarity of the sound; in the use of specially-commissioned, relevant artwork which matches the maturity of each year group, rather than the use of clip art.

Every lesson has a detailed, integrated Lesson Plan which may be opened with the lesson and viewed online or printed. The lesson plans include a contextual description, a statement of the objectives, keywords, the level, the expected learning outcomes, the teaching and learning activities with suggested timeline and full description of the teaching points. As a useful reminder, thumbnail pictures of the starters and plenaries are shown. Just as with the lessons, each element of the Lesson Plan can be edited; when a lesson is customised, changes are reflected in a customised Lesson Plan.

Some very high quality printed worksheets are available to accompany the Maths Matters lessons suite and the first examples of integrated worksheets are included from version 3. Originally designed for use in booster lessons, eventually there will be one worksheet (and one homework sheet) for every lesson.

Numerous utilities are provided for ad-hoc use within Maths Matters lessons, including an excellent graphical calculator emulator which allows plotting and comparison of any functions in 2D or 3D, Cartesian or polar coordinates.

Schools can contact us to ask for information or arrange a demonstration.