Advice needed for buying GCSE revision books please! :)

dellboy102

Hi Guys, my little sis is in year 10 and is after some GCSE revision books for all her subjects, she priced it up from whsmith and it came up to roughly £100, I think she wants Letts ones, I want the best for her really so dont mind spending as much money as it takes however i'm also a big fan of MSE so in the spirit of things i'm always after the best deal :money:

So my question is 2 fold really,

1 - first which revision books are the best, I only know of Letts, BBC Bitesize and CGP

2 - where would be the best place to buy them from, I was going to check Amazon out but not sure if there are any better places.

Oh and one final question, if I buy her all these books for year 10, will I have to buy them again for when she moves to year 11, sorry i'm really out of touch with school!

Thank you very much for reading guys, your help will be much appreciated.

Oh and its great to see the site is back up and running, I didnt realize I used it this much, I was checking every hour!

landkmum

I'm afraid I can't advise on which type are best or if they'll cover her entire course but have you had a look on ebay to see if you can get some cheap secondhand ones? Failing that, why not try your local carboot or charity shops.

Helix

Ask the school because they sometimes recommend ones and in some cases like the CGP books can get them a lot cheaper. You should only need 1 book which will cover both years but in some cases you might need more than one.

hm71_2

our local 99p shop had some recently. my dd managed to get a couple of her subjects but they did not have a physics one!!! so it might be worth alook in there.

loopylass

I will say again ask the school ive just bought 2 revision books for £5 with the school in the same subject and the maths teacher advised me which one to get as there is a big range of books available and not every book covers what your child is doing so you could be wasting your money

Ask at parents evening(if there is one soon) or phone and ask your childs teachers what book they think would be the best

SteveCutler

My advice would be to get one specific to the course.

The three main exam boards (Edexcel, OCR, AQA) all use different courses and most revision guides are "general", as in they'll promote it for "all exam boards" and not make it specific.

By buying these guides most of the content is unnecessary and makes revision complex and pointless... my advice is to find out from the school the course and exam board, (whilst you're there ask them if they supply any books - as said in the posts above) then research books specific to that course.

adsk

If you are wanting to save money... if sister has neighbours in her street who have alread sat their GCSEs why not ask them if they revision books that they would like to give you or sell you at a very reduced rate. If your sister's school has a sixth form she could ask the Head of 6th form if she could put a notice up in the 6th form common room asking if anyone is willing to give her/sell her their old revision books. One word of caution however - do make sure that the course that your sister is following is the same as the older students.

I am a secondary school teacher so I also have views about the quality of revision guides. My experience is that CGP overall produced very good revision guides but it's worth asking for advice from the school's teachers - they may have particular recommendations. Some schools also order and sell on at cost price revision books (passing on the savings they've made by buying in bulk).

There is free revision available at BBC Bitesize. Also, many schools have bought whole school licences for SAM Learning which provides online revision materials - it's worth asking about this.

andrewmoorcroft

I like CGP books http://www.cgpbooks.co.uk
They are the cheapest, most concise, and child friendly. I have done past papers with my son and could answer ALL the questions with the revision guide to get 100%. I can't imagine what other info is in the books with 4 x as many pages! They have exam board specific books for different levels etc. I think you should find the Exam board and syllabus number for each subject, wring CGP and get them to tell you which ones you need. Sometimes it is complicated - I expect half the people who bought a science revision book last year for a yr 10 doing 360science got the wrong book! It's a shame that all schools don't get them in and sell them at the school price.

brooksie

I posted a wanted on freecycle and got most for my son, took a few attempts but got there in the end, also ebay.

princess

Our local charity shops are full of them at the moment. I guess students have had a big clear out after sucessfully passing their courses in the summer.

catsonic

my daughter has just finished her gcses. I bought her loads of revision guides and books! I'll get her to hunt them all out and i'll post on here what i've got! I know there is english, maths and science and history i think. but it will depend if she was intermediate or whatever its called! lol

As long as you pay postage you can have them! My youngest daughter is only 11 so by the time she gets to gcse it will all have changed again!

I never thought of recycling them!