A project has been developed for KS3 maths, funded by the Bowland Trust (www.bowlandmaths.org.uk) with additional support from the DCSF. It consists of a teaching resource of about 20 case-study problems aimed at developing thinking, reasoning and problem-solving skills and has been distributed to all UK secondary schools. Each case study includes all the necessary classroom materials together with teachers' notes. These have been trialled in schools and were launched nationally in summer 2008, ready for use in the 2008/2009 school year. A generic professional development package for the whole programme has also been developed, with MA/ATM among the partners contributing to this. To be launched alongside the case studies, it is designed to help teachers develop skills to make maximum use of the concepts integral to the case studies and supports the key processes of the new national curriculum, such as selecting mathematical information, methods and tools, and engaging in mathematical discussion of results. In this article, the authors reflect on the experience of trialling resources developed to increase student engagement through solving problems.