Best courses & resources for English & Maths

[Helenagrace]

I need suggestions for maths and English courses for DD who is nearly 11.

I'm happy to go it alone with other subjects but I feel like I need the structure of a "proper" course. DD is used to the Schofield mental arithmetic books but I wondered what everyone else uses?

I use Essential Maths with my 12yo she seems to like it.
For English we use Oxford Open Learning which means she has a tutor and so I feel like I have a safety net with it.

We haven't started yet, when we do I think I'll use a combination of good old BBC bitesize (to help me gauge the level of work and what she would be doing were she in school) and www.galorepark.co.uk/index.html.

I have a junior galore park book on it's way for us to look at. I like that there was a hefy free download to get a good idea of that the books are like. What struck me is that they are not patronising and silly - which dd doesn't respond well to. So we'll see.

I also feel a need to have a set idea of maths/english/science. I think, on my part, this is to do with my own confidence in these areas.

I have heard lots of good things about Galore parks "So you really want to learn maths" - there is a book 1, 2 and 3 all essentially aimed at the 11+ and the 13+ for private schools, but lots of HErs use them. Ds is likely to use them soon.
With the separate answer books as well they seem quite costly but they do look great.

We use Galore Park and like the maths a lot. But you do need to bear in mind that even the author never intended a child to do every sum in every exercise. We tend to do odds or evens with any exercise over 10 sums. They do stretch them.

I'm not quite so keen on the English: they are quite repetitive and although they are good for reading/punctuation/grammar, they are very lacking on teaching writing skills. They just give a selection of writing 'tasks' with no guidelines as to how might be a good way to approach them.

Regarding cost, they are expensive but you can usually sell them for a reasonable amount when you have finished with them.