by Keith Grimwade and Greg Hart - published by Hodder and Stoughton

Core Geography - UK£7.50 (ISBN 0 340 63097 3)
Core Geography Teacher's Resource Pack - UK£31.50 (ISBN 0 340 63098 1)

Core Geography and its accompanying Teacher's Resource Pack are aimed at Key Stage 3 of the UK National Curriculum.

The textbook itself is divided into 11 units (the major components of which are noted after the unit title):

Each unit starts with a list of key ideas whilst the various sections within each unit are organised into double page spreads. Each of these spreads has a word box and question box to help consolidate the students' understanding of the topic(s). To help further with this there is a set of summary questions at the end of each unit. Overall the layout and general organisation of the book make it easy to follow and use and the numerous diagrams, maps and photos are clearly presented. That said there is nothing much to distinguish the book from the mass of other texts aimed at the same market. It would have been nice if the opportunity had been taken to use at least one case study from outside the 'usual big three' of Brazil, India and Japan, come to think of it why do so many UK geography texts almost totally ignore China, the world's most populous country?

Onto the Teacher's Resource Pack which is the stronger of these two books. The introduction contains plenty of ideas for integrating the materials in Core Geography into department plans and gives examples of how to do this whether your plan is based on a thematic, regional or issues centred approach. There is also a very good section here with suggestions about using Core Geography to help with differentiation.

The bulk of the Pack is obviously taken up with support and extension materials for each of the eleven units contained in the textbook. The Resource Pack contains pairs of differentiated worksheets on each topic with a resource bank to accompany either or both of them. An assessment test with a mark scheme is provided for each unit and there are brief but helpful notes for interpreting the scores students achieve in terms of the NC level attained.

The diagrams and maps in the Resource Pack are almost entirely well produced with clearly contrasting shading being used, this apparently minor point is in fact very important as the worksheets in this Pack are going to be photocopied for class use. The only exception to this is on page 25 where there are two extracts from OS maps, neither of which is particularly clear and I doubt whether they will photocopy very well. As one of the worksheets asks students to draw a cross section based on these maps I can foresee difficulties as some contour lines will probably not copy at all. One extract also clearly shows the crease mark along which the original has been folded! However it is unfair of me to dwell too long on the only drawback in the whole Pack. Finally I should mention the durability of the Pack which is enhanced by the spiral ring binding making handling and photocopying worksheets easy. It also means that you are not breaking the spine of the book by flattening it out on a photocopier, a simple fact maybe but one that is often overlooked by publishers.

In conclusion if you are looking for a comprehensive textbook to cover the whole of Key Stage 3 then this is probably not it (especially as there is no real attempt at explaining a whole range of geographical skills). However if you already have quite a well planned coverage at this level Core Geography will certainly help consolidate your students' work. Without the Teacher's Resource Pack to accompany it though Core Geography does feel a little lightweight. Therefore I would suggest that if this does sound like the textbook for you make sure you get the Pack to accompany it, it does make a great deal of difference to how useful the main text can be.

My thanks to Julia Morris at Hodder and Stoughton for providing review copies of these two books.