Fifth edition of Maths Explained

I am aware that I have rather neglected this blog for the last month or so. The reason has been that I have been in the last stages of revising Mathematics Explained for Primary Teachers, to be published in its fifth (!) edition in 2014. I am pleased to say that I managed to get it all sent off to Sage Publications around the  middle of December, only a couple of weeks late.
My major task was to accommodate Michael Gove's new primary mathematics curriculum – without compromising my principles regarding the teaching and learning of mathematics. I am pleased with what I have managed to do in this respect. Yes, I have had to put in a lot of extra material on fractions and standard algorithms for multiplication and division. I feel an obligation to the future teachers who will have to teach this stuff to primary children, to ensure that they have the chance to understand what they are teaching. And, yes, I have regretfully had to ditch a whole chapter on probability, now removed from the primary experience. It must have been too much fun. But the core material of the book, and its characteristic approach and style are retained.
The book will appear in both electronic and paper formats, and will have have loads of clever electronic features in it. I will not say more about these at present, other than to say that I am having fun preparing these!
And the Student Workbook that accompanies the main text book has to be revised as well, so I am currently working on that. I may take a day off for Christmas.