- Thursday 22 May 2025
Our iconic New Wave Mental Maths series has been around for 20 years (can you believe it?), and with changes to the mathematics curriculum for the first time in 25 years, it was time for an update.
That’s why we are so excited about our newly revised New Wave Mental Math series!
This new edition has a brand new look (and a brand new mascot!)
The new features – ‘Maths Talk’, ‘Maths Vocabulary’, and ‘Monday Focus’ questions – have everyone excited, and the feedback we’ve received from classroom testing is overwhelming!
There’s a lot of uncertainty in the air for teachers who need to adapt to the new content, requirements, and learning outcomes of the new curriculum.
Let’s explore these new changes a bit more and find out how New Wave Mental Maths (Revised Edition) has been updated to support you in achieving these new learning outcomes.
Play and problem-solving in the 2024 curriculum
The new Primary Mathematics Curriculum encourages pupil learning through playing and problem-solving (which increases engagement) and is achievable in the following ways with the revised edition of New Wave Mental Maths:
- Being creative – pupils are encouraged to think creatively to solve daily mental maths problems.
- Taking risks – taking a risk to offer a potential correct answer is better than no answer at all, and pupils can track how they perform and improve over time.
- Working with peers – pupils can collaborate with their peers to work together to solve challenging problems, as well as discuss maths vocabulary through the new, weekly 'Maths Talk' feature.
- Being challenged – questions get progressively harder each week, along with different strategies and concepts being introduced every Monday through the new 'Monday Focus' feature.
- Making connections between mathematics and other subjects – cross-curricular activities and questions help students make connections between different subjects and consolidate knowledge.
Repetition and revision
Something that makes the New Wave Mental Maths series renowned is how simple it makes it to practise daily mental maths, revise concepts, consolidate learning, and warm up prior to teaching – since it covers many different maths problems and strands and also offers opportunities for spaced revision.
Teachers use the New Wave Mental Maths series as easy-set homework, practice following lessons, weekly assessments, and more! There are so many ways to incorporate the books into your existing teaching approaches.
Not to mention, repetition and revision of learned concepts throughout the school year are essential because the act of practising ensures pupils retain knowledge, rather than learning a concept once and forgetting it.
(We talk more about this in our Practise, Consolidate, Reinforce framework, which serves as the foundation for how we design and create all of our pupil resources.)
Structured weekly programme
This newly revised edition makes it simple to adapt and re-align to new curriculum emphases and content adjustments.
Through structured weekly questions that provide a clear progression pathway, each book covers all strands and strand unit objectives applicable to mental maths and aligns with essential curriculum learning outcomes.
- Start each week with the new ‘Monday Focus’ feature, which aims to introduce key facts and strategies at the start of the week that will assist pupils in solving that week’s problems and result in the sequential development of mathematical concepts.
- Then, set daily practice (Tuesday–Thursday) in the classroom or at home, depending on how you choose to implement the workbooks.
- Finally, assess pupil learning on Friday with the ‘Friday Review’ column and monitor progress. This also provides an opportunity to assess whether a topic needs to be further covered or extended on.
Make waves of student learning progress with the newly revised New Wave Mental Maths series!
Shop the range today or download a sample if you want to scope out the recent content changes and new features prior to purchasing.
