Introducing Maths Courses from B28 Maths Tutor
This article gives you an introduction to my sister site, mathscourses.co.uk, where you’ll find – as the name suggests – a range of maths courses to help you achieve your goals.
Maths courses on the site
Below are some of the main maths courses on the site; there’s more too, so feel free to explore!
Maths course samples – try before you buy!
This course offers a selection of free sample lessons – from maths courses across the whole site – without any commitment. You don’t even need a login for this one! Just click the button below and then select the Curriculum (hamburger menu) tab, and browse the courses you’re interested in.
Grade 4 Essentials for GCSE Maths
Grade 4 Essentials for GCSE Maths consists of five modules in total:
- Number and Ratio
- Geometry and Measure
- Algebra and Graphs
- Statistics and Probability
- Top-end Topics – for those who want full coverage of Foundation Tier
It’s ideal for home educators, adult learners, and anyone else who feels they would benefit from a bit of extra help to get that magic Grade 4.
For students who are aiming for a Grade 5, or who are doing Higher and want to make sure there are no gaps in their Foundation knowledge, the Top-end Topics module fills in the few remaining gaps so that the course gives full coverage of the Foundation Tier. If you’re only aiming for a Grade 4 then you can skip that one.
Even if you’re doing the Higher Tier, you still need to be secure on the Foundation content. If your confidence isn’t quite what it could be then this series of maths courses may be just what you need for that extra boost!
It’s also relevant to those studying the Edexcel International GCSE (IGCSE), since there are only small differences between the two qualifications at Foundation level, and these are highlighted in the content so you can skip the bits that aren’t relevant to your specification.
Each course consists of a set of pre-recorded videos – over 6 hours’ worth in Module 1 alone – with lots of built-in opportunities for you to practise the skills being taught, and a series of quizzes for you to test your knowledge and understanding after working through the lessons.
Since the videos are pre-recorded, you can pause them so that you can answer questions in your own time, and repeat sections whenever you like. Of course, this means that if you make full use of them then they’ll take considerably longer than just the actual running time to get through!
You can also redo the quizzes multiple times, so – if you like – you can try them before doing the lessons, shortly afterwards (several times if you wish!), and then again a few weeks later. If there’s anything you’re still struggling with then you can always post a question on the Facebook group, where you can get free help.
Click the button below to view all the modules of the course.
Of course, you’ll want to work through lots of exam questions too. That’s not the focus of this course – it’s more focused on the underlying skills that you’re going to need for the exams – but you are directed to some useful free resources for exam preparation. The advice in this blog post will also help you to prepare effectively.
Flying Start to A-level Maths
This course is aimed at those studying Higher GCSE (or Edexcel IGCSE), with a view to going on to study Maths at A-level. It covers all the top-end parts of the GCSE specification that are assumed prior knowledge for A-level.
Since there’s so much content in the GCSE specification, schools often just have to gloss over some of the topics and the top end of the difficulty range. They simply don’t have the time to cover them in the depth that you need to get the very best GCSE results and hit the ground running when you start the A-level. This course aims to address that, helping you to achieve those top GCSE grades as well as being ready to start the A-level.
It contains over 10 hours of video lessons, with plenty of practice opportunities built in – so it will actually take considerably longer for you to work through if you take full advantage of those. It costs less than an hour’s 1-to-1 tuition with me, and there are discounts available – as well as a selection of useful free downloads – if you sign up to my mailing list. (There’s a signup form in the footer of this page.)
Click on the button below to view the full course.
Maximise your marks in GCSE Maths
A short course packed full of tips to help you avoid throwing marks away unnecessarily in an exam. The focus is on GCSE Maths but there are plenty of tips that are relevant to other subjects and levels too.
Getting the most out of your Casio scientific calculator
This course shows you how to do lots of clever stuff on a Casio calculator, including the fx-83/85 GT Plus, the Classwiz X models and the newest Classwiz CW models. (It doesn’t cover graphical calculators though.) You can read more about the different models in this blog post.
How I built the site
The Maths Courses site, like this one, is built in WordPress. For those not familiar with WordPress, it’s the world’s most popular platform for building websites (I believe that something like 40% of the websites in existence use it). It started out as just a platform for bloggers, but these days it’s much more than that.
You choose a theme – a sort of frame on which you construct your site – and install additional programs called plugins that do all sorts of things: security, page building software, backup tools, memberships, photo galleries, and so on.
I built the Maths Courses site using an LMS (Learning Management System) plugin called LearnPress. The basic LearnPress LMS is free, but in order to add some of the functionality I needed/wanted (such as taking credit/debit card payments via Stripe, allowing students to review the maths courses, awarding certificates for course completion, etc.), various add-ons were required, and the most efficient way of getting these was to buy a theme package. The one that I plumped for was called Eduma, mainly on the basis that it was the most popular and included lots of demo sites that you could use as a starting point.
I’m not entirely sure whether the demo site was a help or a hindrance, but after much experimentation and watching numerous YouTube tutorials (in particular I learned a lot from IdeaSpot and Nayyar Shaikh) – and with a bit of help from Phuong at ThimPress Tech Support – I managed to get it looking and working as I wanted it.
So please take a look at the maths courses on offer, and I hope you’ll want to enrol!
