Bucknell Maths is easy and fun to use. It requires no prior training and you don't have to be a computer expert either! Once you have decided to go ahead, you will receive a memory stick pre-loaded with the software and your child's details. It will also come with preliminary exercises from your tutor (it will take a number of exercises before the tutor is familiar with your child's experience and level).

All you have to do is plug the Bucknell Maths stick into the USB port of any PC or laptop (rec. Windows XP or Vista) and you are ready to go. Once your child's home page pops up, simply click on "Practice" to start work.

Because Bucknell Maths generates all it needs for the set of questions in one go (immediately you click "Practice", you will not even notice any pause), no time is wasted waiting for CD fetches or slow internet response. No time is wasted between children answering questions, seeing whether they are correct and moving to the next question. So the system does not interrupt the flow of the child's work.

What does Bucknell Maths cover?

Bucknell Maths has thousands of exercises covering all the topics within the Primary Framework for Mathematics. All the exercises are produced using random generators so the questions are actually created each time your children's work is set. Because all exercise programs use random generators, the system can provide countless millions of questions.

Each series of exercise set will cover a particular theme or practice topic in the curriculum. Some exercises will be more important in the curriculum than others, and so each exercise is ranked, as 'essential learning', 'reinforcement exercise' or 'additional exercise'. If time is limited, your tutor will probably prioritise the most essential learning exercises first.

As a parent you don't need to worry about what should be done next and your child doesn't need to think about it either, as a new practice session will appear automatically each time on request. If you want to track your child's progress, you can look at progress reports and of course if you have any concerns you can discuss them with your child's tutor so adjustments can be made.

Setting new work

In general your tutor will send you new work via attachments to emails. These are then easily downloaded into the system (it is very easy, the tutor will explain how). A typical batch from your tutor may be for 1-2 weeks of work. If any problems occur during that time, your child can postpone exercises or new exercises can be sent which are to go to the "top of the queue".

If for any reason you have temporarily no access to the internet, your tutor can even provide new work via a simple set of instructions over the telephone.

In a similar way you will be asked to send back a file from the system to your tutor with your child's results so far (again your tutor will explain how, it is a very simple procedure). The file will contain details of exercises completed, with timings, errors made, questions correct etc. This is essential feedback which your tutor will need to decide on the next set of work. You will be able to see the same set of reports that the tutor uses as a basis for further work.

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