The Edexcel International GCSE Biology exam is one of the exams that we are working towards writing this year. I know quite a few home educators like to do it in 1 year but for a number of reasons we opted to do it over 2 years, so that being the case we have already spend a year working on it and have found which resources work for us. (I very much agree with the idea that just because certain resources work for one kid does not mean they will work for others but I also know how helpful it is to read what others are finding useful so this is our list of what we are finding useful for our Edexcel IGCSE Biology prep work.)

Okay our main book and the one we can not do without is the Hodder Education International GCSE Biology Student book. This is our text book – the one with all the explanations and information in it and really if you get just one book it is this one. As much as I like the GCP Book that I mention below, it is a summary book and it does not include the same amount of information and detail as this one does. And after looking at questions the kids actually need this detail. We are totally happy with the explanations included in here, nothing is ambiguous, and 90% of the time my daughter works through it totally independently. They do also include questions for the kids to practice on and the answers are free to download from the website. Really everything you are going to need.

Okay the CGP Edexcel IGCSE Biology book is a Revision Book. We use it as a Summary book and it is just the way my daughter likes to learn she likes having a summary books for all of her subjects that she can read once she finishes the topic. But I want to stress as much as we like this book it does not contain the detail of the Hodder book I mentioned above.

Okay then our Edexcel IGCSE Biology Workbook. There are questions in the Hodder Book but I am just one of those home educators who believes the more the kids get to practice answering the questions the more confident they will be. So that is why we opted for a workbook. There are no explanations in this it is straight forward questions on the topics that the kids need to cover and there are answers at the back of the book. For me this is the 2nd must have book after the main Hodder student book.

And our last book is the CGP Edexcel International GCSE Biology ten minute test book. We do the quick tests in here as revision and a way of making sure we understood everything. They really are very quick tests and they do highlight if there is something that we need to go back and visit.

And lastly we are also using the Cognito site for Biology (we also use it for Physics and Maths). I have not paid for the premium version and we are just using the free version but we do find it useful. There are explanations and some questions on there.

For those of you who want Amazon links these are the books mentioned in the post

• Hodder International GCSE Biology student book (our main text book)
• CGP Edexcel IGCSE Biology book (this is a summary book)
• Edexcel IGCSE Biology Workbook
• Edexcel IGCSE Biology ten minute test book

Just to update – my daughter has sat her exams and she got an 8 (just 2 marks short of a 9)

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.