Maths GCSE book for adult revision

[MadamBuxton]

Hi I’m looking for recommendations for a good Maths GCSE guide. It’s a slightly unusual situation: I’m hoping to do some volunteering and an area I’m keen to look into is offering free tutoring to kids doing their GCSE maths. For example, someone whose parents couldn’t afford a tutor but they need some help getting to a grade 5 (or whatever) so they can progress to a course/apprenticeship. I’m not a qualified teacher but I have a strong maths background and know that I’m good at explaining concepts from when I’ve helped my own kids and a few other people informally.

A lot of the content I can remember fine, but I’d like to brush up so I’m looking for a suitable resource. Any suggestions?

I would get the CGP revision guides from a couple of different exam boards.

GCSE Maths AQA Complete Revision & Practice: Higher inc Online Ed, Videos & Quizzes: for the 2025 and 2026 exams https://amzn.eu/d/hZHY3oV

When I was tutoring, I used the CGP revision guides as a summary for me to get an idea of what the students needed to learn. There's quite a lot packed on one page and sometimes this was too much for the student to take in, particularly if they were struggling, but it was very useful for me.

I found that was all I needed for up to about grade 7-8 GCSE but when working with the very high flyers, there are bits that aren't adequately described in the CGP books (IMO). If you are in this situation I would find out what exam board the student is signed up for and then get the full relevant text book from the same/linked publisher. For example the Edexcel exam board is linked to Pearson publishers. This will be quite expensive but you may be able to get a second hand one.

TES resources is a good place to find practice worksheets if needed. Many teachers in maths particularly share their resources for free.
Corbett maths is good for easier practice and Dr Frost maths for the very trickier questions.

Pixie Maths and Maths Genie also have really good resources but their websites aren't the easiest to negotiate.

https://www.mathsgenie.co.uk/scheme.php
This page gives a really good progression through the GCSE syllabus.

The actual maths syllabus is the same for all exam boards but the types of question do vary in style between boards. The number and length of exams also varies but the info can be found on the relevant exam board website. These will also have past papers and marking schemes for when your student is ready to try these.

PS the content for higher has all the foundation content plus lots more so you need to know which the student is doing. I used to find, particularly for students who were finding it hard going that it was better to take my time really helping them to get to grips with a few topics properly - this gave them a different experience to one they often had at school where teachers had to go at a certain pace to get through the syllabus.

CGP books (for gcse maths and science are crazy good) and youtube videos will teach content then just do questions to solidify understanding.

Thanks all. That’s really good info @EducatingArti thank you.