Each major topic within the specification has a workbook for students to complete. These are intended to be used with our videos but can be used independently of them too providing you cover the necessary theory the activities require. Each workbook has four sections: specification, activities, assessment and a revision checklist.

SPECIFICATION COVERAGE

The first page of the workbook clearly outlines the part of the specification that is covered. There is at least one page of activities for each point of the specification within the workbook to ensure full coverage. Resources to support students are also highlighted. We recommend the PG Online text book and appropriate page numbers are identified. Links to our videos are also provided.

We have simple lesson plans for each workbook that outline objectives, a key question and the pages of the workbook to be completed in each lesson.

VARIETY OF ACTIVITIES WITH A PIN-SHARP FOCUS

The activities can be completed by students independently. As each page is a PowerPoint slide, we use the notes section of the slide to explain to students what to do in simple numbered points. PowerPoint might sound like a strange choice but surprisingly we have found it’s the best desktop publisher for students! Objects on one slide don’t interfere with another. There is no pagination to worry about. Alignment tools work very well, and students can easily add text to boxes. PowerPoint is the application that gives you the least hassle when editing! As a bonus, it is easy to project individual slides to students too, both from the blank workbook, model answers and a student’s response. It is incredibly easy with this format for students to present their work to others.

We ensure there is a good variety of activities within each workbook rather than just simple lists of questions. There is a fair bit of completing empty boxes to adequately capture the theory, but this is mixed in with many other activities. An example is drawing a star network and illustrating the coverage of wireless access points with coloured spheres, or a hyperlinked multimedia guide to the internal components of a computer etc.

We ensure all activities are suitable for the level of study and only focus on what is relevant for the exam they are sitting.

FULLY EDITABLE

As the workbooks are in PowerPoint format, it is easy to add additional slides and adapt any of the content to meet your requirements and local context.

IDEAL FOR FLIPPED LEARNING

If students watch our videos, capturing the notes within them in an exercise book, this will provide them with most of the answers to activities within the workbook. This means that even the weakest students can complete the work, but with opportunities for the most able too. Students can start working on their workbook immediately without any teaching from the front of the class. This enables you to spend more time on Q&A, working with individuals and small groups because the rest of the class are independent. They are also not waiting for the next activity because they have all the work for the whole unit in front of them.

NO REVISION GUIDE NEEDED

The workbooks are presented in such a way that when they are complete, they are a perfect revision guide. With our own learners we were fed up of getting to the end of a course and having random printed work in folders, random files on home drives and nothing cohesive to revise from. That problem is solved. Every year we have students attaining grades 7-9 in a comprehensive setting just using our resources and nothing else.

MODEL ANSWERS & KNOWLEDGE ORGANISERS

We provide model answers for every page of every workbook. You can easily show the class what, “good” looks like. If students don’t do very well with the work, you can also give them these model workbooks at the end of the course. They make a great knowledge organiser too!

MIX IT UP WITH PROGRAMMING

Many of the activities only require a portion of the lesson. In order to keep students interested and build knowledge successfully over time we suggest students spend some of the lesson also working on our programming resources. The activities are not supposed to take all lesson.

MORE PEDAGOGY FROM CRAIG’N’DAVE

We have lots to tell you about challenge, differentiation and how our workbooks work with those aspects of teaching. Follow the links below to find out more.

• Read more about challenge using our resources.
• Read more about differentiation with our resources.