ofamily learning together

Initial thoughts on A levels

Posted on December 5, 2025 by ofamily

I have mentioned a few times that my oldest started studying for her A levels this year. We are doing her A levels at home using a distance learning provider. It has been a bit of a learning curve for us because I feel like the distance learning provider has not delivered what I was expecting (I think they quality is not as good as I expected) so I have become more involved then I had initially planned. I am still figuring what I want to say about the distance learning provider that we choose and I will write about that at some stage but for now I wanted to say a few quick things.

We choose to go with a distance learning provider because I thought I would not be able to guide her and help her enough. But actually after a few months I can honestly say that if you have been home educating your kids and if you are dedicated to their education then don’t underestimate yourself. Honestly the subject that I was most nervous about (A Level Maths) is the one that I am very involved with and we are managing to figure it out together. It is time consuming, there is no denying that and at times it can be a bit frustrating but we are getting through the work and she is getting good marks. So if you and your kiddo are determined then please don’t underestimate yourself like I did.

With home education there is never one “right” way to achieve your goals. But for us what we have found is we do need to be more structured to get through the work. We have found that having a “rough” routine for the week is a must just because there is a lot of content to cover. We have also found that you need to do extra reading or in the case of Maths extra questions. What our distance provider gave us is not sufficient. For all of her subjects we are using multiple resources (ie multiple books and multiple websites). You have a lot of content to get through but you also need to know/understand that content in detail.

And the flip side of that is although there is more content to get through you do need to still ensure your kiddo is having breaks and good breaks at that. Make sure they get out the house and stretch their legs. A change of environment can works wonders if you are struggling to understand a tricky concept.

A Levels still feels very new to us and I still feel like I have more to learn but I do think as home educators we can underestimate ourselves and honestly if you got your kiddo through GCSE (or IGCSE) and you and your kiddo are determined then trust yourself.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged A Levels, home ed, home education, homeschooling | Leave a comment

CGP IGCSE Chemistry workbook verses their Targeted grade workbook

Posted on November 20, 2025 by ofamily

I have often tried to figure out what the differences are between the CGP Science workbooks and the CGP Science workbooks which are grade 8-9 targeted. I wanted to know if the questions are duplicated and if it is worthwhile buying both. I searched and I never found the detail that I wanted so I thought I would now try and answer it myself.

I was given the Edexcel International GCSE Chemistry Exam Practice Workbook Grade 8-9 targeted by CGP and I bought my own Edexcel International CGP Chemistry Exam Practice Workbook. I want to point out that even though CGP gave me the one workbook it was NOT for the purposes of this post, this post is 100% because I got frustrated trying to figure this out for myself.

Okay first look/ thoughts.

The Targeted workbook is a lot thinner that the normal workbook and does contain few pages and fewer questions (the Targeted workbook has only 71 pages of questions while the normal workbook has 125 pages).

Content wise they do cover the same topics but the targeted workbook is a lot more specific in which parts of the topics it has questions on. If you look at the contents page and just look at Section 1 – Particle and mixtures, the targeted workbook only has questions for State of Matter and Elements, Compounds and Mixtures (6 pages of questions)

whereas the normal workbook covers a much wider range and totals 10 pages of questions.

Okay so you do get a more questions in the normal workbook.

Are the questions duplicated? In others words if you bought the normal workbook would it include all the same questions in the targeted workbook. The answer is NO they are NOT duplicated. The questions in the normal workbook and the questions in the targeted workbook are different. (This was always a big question of mine as I did not want to buy 2 workbooks which just had duplicate questions in them).

The normal workbook does include a wider range of questions in that there are a lot more quick questions whereas the targeted workbook has have longer questions (these are the harder questions).

For an example this is the same page firstly in the normal workbook

And now in the targeted Grade 8-9 workbook

What are my thoughts.

I like the normal workbook as it includes a range of questions from easy to hard and there are more questions for each topic, so you can test the basics and also test harder content in one go. As a home educator I feel like this is a must have resource. However if your kid is wanting to go for the higher grades than the targeted workbook does offer lots of extra practice for those harder questions. So it is a case of what are you needing and how confident does your kiddo feel about the easier content.

What are we going to use? Actually Both. Yip I am going to use both with my son as I want to make sure we are completely confident with all those easy marks questions but I know we are going for higher marks so I also want to give him extra practice with the more challenging questions as well.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged GCSE, home education, homeschooling, IGCSE Chemistry, KS4 | Leave a comment

International GCSE Chemistry question and answer cards

Posted on October 16, 2025 by ofamily

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we stuck with our tried and tested CGP resources for Chemistry (their workbook, question cards and 10 minute test book), and I meant to write posts about the cards and the 10 minute test book but it just so happened that we moved and I injured my shoulder, so nothing much happened. But now our house is sort of set up (I still have some boxes to unpack but the import stuff has been unpacked) and my shoulder is feeling better so I am starting to get back into sharing about the resources that we use.

Okay so the cards. My daughter used the CGP cards for both her Biology and Physics and we both loved them so I knew I would get them for Chemistry.

This little pack comes with 93 question cards. But on each card you get between 5 and 7 questions. So think about that for a minute, that is a lot of questions. And the answers are all on the back of each card.

We loved these cards for three main reasons. Firstly they are a great way to revise, you can sit in your bed and test yourself. Perfect. Secondly because they are in a card format you can use them over and over again (and let me tell you for both Biology and Physics my daughter used her cards multiple times). And thirdly the cards clearly state which questions will only be in Paper 2. Which when it comes to revising for the exams is very useful.

The cards cover all the topics as per the specification. But they have also included a card which shows all the formulas that you need to know (this card is gold) and they have also included a few on graphs and results which are also incredibly useful.

Honestly if your kiddo is doing IGCSE Chemistry then this set of question and answer cards are going to be well worth it. They are without a doubt one of my must have resources for all the Science subjects.

I have seen these cards at my local book store but you can also get them directly from the CGP website – Edexcel International GCSE Chemistry cards and you can also get them Amazon – CGP Edexcel International GCSE Chemistry question and answer cards

Admin – I do include Affiliate links. If you follow an affiliate link and go on to purchase that product, I will be paid a very small commission, however your cost will remain the same. I only include affiliate links for products that we use and recommend.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged home education, homeschooling, IGCSE Chemistry, KS4 | Leave a comment

Terrible True Tales Vikings

Posted on September 26, 2025 by ofamily

I have been enjoying the idea behind the newish series Terrible True Tales. Each book contains 4 short stories which are young kids historical fiction based on something that did actually happen. They are fun reads for younger kids and great for us home educators who want to weave a bit of learning into reading.

The latest is Terrible True Tales of Vikings.

I would say these books suit 7+ ages, but really it depends on your kiddo. Each story is short, fun and filled with historical facts. After the story there is always an “Afterward” which clearly states what part is fact and then a “You Try” page which has ideas on possible activities which you could do.

So Very Briefly what are the 4 short stories about.

The first one is called The Eye of the Viking God. This one is about a young Saxon girl who was kidnapped, turned into a slave by the Vikings and it deals with her life as a Viking slave and how she managed to escape.

The second is The Battle for the Viking Gold. This deals with the raids on the English monasteries. I must admit I quite enjoyed the characters that were created in this one especially that of the naughty boys, the idea of them pranking the monks really did get me chuckling as I could imagine something like that happening.

The third one was The Sword of the Viking King. This was my favorite story probably because it included King Alfred and dealt with the Saxons fighting the Vikings, so there were lots of extra bits in this story that I found interesting.

The fourth one was The Hand of the Viking Warrior. An interesting account of the Vikings trying to set up farms in America.

I thought all 4 short stories were well written and included lots of every day historical facts. This is the kind of book that my son would have enjoyed when he was younger and it is something that I would have used when we learnt about the Vikings. I would recommend this book.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged Historical Fiction, home education, homeschooling, KS2 History, Vikings | Leave a comment

IGCSE Chemistry workbook

Posted on September 19, 2025 by ofamily

When it comes to your IGCSE Science subjects there are two things that I discovered are vital – firstly a good student book which explains everything and then secondly questions, lots of questions, more questions that you realize you needed. We have our student book so the next thing I needed was our questions and I totally took the easy route – I went for my tried and tested Triple CGP set (tried and tested with my oldest when she did both Biology and Physics). The Workbook, The 10 minute test book and the question cards.

This is my must have set for any IGCSE Science subject.

For the purposes of this post I am going to focus on the Workbook because we tend to use it first. We use the workbook as we work through the sections and we tend to use the 10 minute test book and question cards once we get the end of sections.

Okay so the workbook is a black and white, write in book filled with questions and there are answers at the back. There are NO explanations. This is a question and answer book. It covers all the topics as per the specification.

This particular workbook is for those targeting Grades 8 and 9 so the questions are a bit more challenging. There is also a workbook which has a bigger range of questions – CGP Workbook. We went for this one because we know we are going for an 8 so I wanted to have focused questions in this Grade range for my son.

The questions are varied and they have included a lot of the calculation/maths type questions (these are always good to practice).

They also clearly indicate which questions will only appear in Paper 2. Now I understand that at the beginning this is not going to seem that important, you are just focused on learning the content but later on when you are revising you are going to love the fact that you have resources that clearly separate out the Paper 2 only questions.

They also have included a set of mixed questions for Paper 1 and Paper 2 at the end of the book. I think this is going to be very useful when it comes to revising.

I know this workbook is going to be one of our important resources for Chemistry. We did every page in the Physics and Biology workbooks and I am sure we will be working through every page in the Chemistry workbook too.