Both series – [Smart Skills Builder Reading and Writing] – are designed to support English teachers and their students in developing active reading and writing skills. The Student’s Books are intended to be used in conjunction with the Teacher’s Books and there is a different pair for each of the three KS3 year groups.

The Student’s Books are attractive and user-friendly, there are no exercises to work through - just plenty of colourful texts of every conceivable variety. For the reading series, the choices are appealing enough for the most reluctant (but able) readers, with plenty of non-fiction for the male KS3 population. The writing series has a super variety of texts (some original) designed to encourage students to write and there is plenty of help directed at students so that they can improve their writing independently. There are examples of students’ own work, marked and annotated by teachers, with level descriptors attached.

The accompanying Teacher’s Books give lots of supplementary ideas. For your £35.00 you get 24 comprehensive lesson plans covering NC levels 4–7 and cross referenced to the AfL and Framework objectives. Each lesson also has photocopiable worksheets relating to the student texts. The variety of activities designed for lessons is outstanding and hopefully most students would not dare to describe them as ‘boring’! The whole of this KS3 series is extremely attractive and well produced. The absence of boring, repetitive student tasks means that surely the books will find favour with today’s demanding KS3 students.

This review was published by NATE in 2008.