I had not enjoyed mathematics all through high school. In matric however, I decided that I wanted to study engineering so getting a good maths mark was very important. My average all through the year had been between 40-50% and so I needed a some major improvement. I am good at self-study so I searched the internet for some maths guide and stumbled upon FHSST.

The book was wonderful for me because I did not have a strong foundation in maths so I used all the books from grade 10 to grade 12 in order to teach myself the basic concepts. The book was easy to understand and the summaries made studying for my matric exam a breeze. Along with some previous matric past papers, I practiced day and night and started to really enjoy mathematics. I realised that as long as I understood the basic concepts, maths was much easier than I had thought.

I went into my matric final exam with a 50% and my final matric mark was 79%. This is one of my greatest achievements and I am very proud of myself. I could not have done this without FHSST. I have now recommended this book to everyone I know who is still at school. My mother is now raising funds to get a copy of the book for every student in an underpriviliged high school in Soweto.

I am now currently studying mechanical engineering and looking forward to tutoring students so that more and more people can develop a passion for mathematics the way I did.

My students were struggling to engage with the textbook the school had when I arrived. It was correct, but the details and the extensive 'discovery' methodology it followed made it difficult for them to find the "work" in the middle of the "discovery". It was also a little short on exercises.
I work from a laptop and projector, and when I found a resource that I could project up, annotate in class (using Foxit Reader, or Zoomit), I had something that was almost as good as an interactive whiteboard with all three years of high school science bundled in.
Being royalty free kept the costs down, and each learner got an A5 copy - the local printers ran them off for around R50 per pair. The learners get to keep them through to matric, with all the notes they have made in class. And if they lose their copies, they can get another copy off the LAN - free and legally.

There have been some errata, but this current itteration will address much of that, I hope, and the annotate page makes sharing updates and comments much more flexible. Certainly, I can't give that amount of detailed feedback to any other publisher!

I'm still eagerly waiting for an HTML version that I can edit on the fly in class, and use to cut and paste for memo's, additional worksheets, and tests. But I have learners who can figure out what's going on, and help themselves to a much larger degree than before. Thanks to all the folk who made this possible!

Grant Hillebrand
Maritzburg Christian School

Hi to all, this isnt much of a testimonial, rather just a really big thank you, I finished Matric in South Africa few years ago, Im now a student overseas in the Economics dept, i had some gaps in my Maths, and while browsing google for good Maths aids, it brought out your site, i would just like to say a big THANK YOU, for all the effort youve put in all these books and as result giving them out free! God Bless you all for your hard work, and the good you do, may it return to you many times over in they ways you wish best!

with much appreciation,

Sincerely Alexandra.

The books provide good digging concepts

I'm currently going through some of the math textbooks, and I'm finding them to be a great resource; they're very well done. The only problem I can find — and it's a significant one — is that there aren't any answers provided for the exercises at the end of each section. I believe exercises are crucial for learning a topic, but if you can't check your answers, you can't be sure whether you've learned it correctly. I'm sure it's OK for teachers using the textbooks, but for anyone using them on their own, it's a problem. I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult for someone who's already mastered the topics to add answer sections at the end of each book or chapter.

Details of what??

I really think what you guys have managed to put together is great, but the fact that the exercises have no answers, I think defeats the whole point of what you were trying to achieve!?!?!

I found it so frustrating not knowing if I was on the right track, that I actually went and found other resources to help me, rather than work through the FHSST textbooks!

I tried to search for the answers everywhere, but couldnt find any, so rather went on to resources that could give me answers, which is a shame as you guys have done such a great job otherwise!

Please consider putting them in to each textbook!