There is an obvious approach to take towards teaching mental strategies. You decide on the strategy for attention and introduce the technique to pupils. The strategy can be discussed, practised and used in a variety of situations. These books, however, take a totally different route: the authors present pupils with a situation in which the focal strategy is likely to arise naturally as the pupils tackle it. The prepared teacher is then able to draw out the strategy from a context that is understood and relevant.

There are three books, one each covering Years 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6. Each offers 24 challenges. The challenge activities are problem solving and include a variety of games and investigative ideas; each is on a double-page spread with notes on relevant calculation strategies and how teachers may handle them.

The books reflect the numeracy strategy philosophy that both children and teachers should be active participants in developing maths. The activities are easy to resource and use, and integrate well with any scheme that draws on best practice in developing numeracy.

Alan Parr is a primary mathematics adviser and in-service training provider