This is designed to lead students through solving quadratic equations by completing the square from quite basic to difficult. The activity is also there to encourage discussion in class and helps them get into good habits regarding setting their solutions out.

Four spiders to complete: two involving two linear equations and two involving a linear and a quadratic. This is designed to create discussion and gives students options on how to solve, either by elimination or substitution. If you are feeling adventurous you could even draw the graphs...

The aim of this is as a starter or plenary but could be used as a class activity. This activity is designed to get students thinking and discussing properties of number. The aim is to allow students to show what they do/don't know and understand. I have two versions: one where students find the number given the properties and vice versa which I suspect will create more discussion. There will be extra properties I've left out on purpose. There is a blank to make up your own too.

This is designed as a starter, plenary or a discussion exercise. There are four "explosions" to work through and I have given you the choice of the students working out the shapes from the properties or finding the properties given the shape. This moves from triangles and quadrilaterals to polygons to 3D shapes. Some shapes have the same property so link to the same cloud. This has been designed to check understanding and to give some the opportunity to expand on properties. I have not included all properties of all shapes to naturally generate discussion and differentiation.

This is a matching activity on bounds (it does what it says on the tin?), including the potential error in calculations. Ideal for a starter or plenary and should hopefully generate discussion and enable students to demonstrate understanding.

Eight matching activities, getting increasingly difficult, on various different formulae to rearrange. These are designed as plenaries or starters and should encourage discussion.

This is designed as a plenary or starter and should encourage discussion regarding the equation of a circle and it's centre/radius. Four different matching activities to try out of increasing difficulty.

Four matchings getting increasingly difficult at they go Firstly spot the correct formula for the correct triangle, the next two calculate a missing side and finally use Pythagoras to find the area of a shape. These have been designed to be used as starters or plenaries but you could use them as a main lesson activity; up to you.

A set of six spiders which encourage students to show every stage of their calculations as they tackle increasingly difficult questions. There are also some question where the answer is given and the workings shown so that students can work backwards; this is designed to avoid students getting stuck in a rut and not thinking about what they are doing in each case.

I have split this into two types: substitution involving rearranging and algebraic rearranging (four of each, each getting increasingly difficult). The substitution spiders are pretty straightforward but the algebraic ones should lead to discussion in class and will allow students to demonstrate (or not) that they fully understand the topic.

This idea is from Craig Barton and is an excellent one (check them out his at website); essentially it is four questions based on the same information. There are four here which use fractions, ratio, percentages and averages as well as other topics. This really should create discussion and a deeper understanding of the topics covered on top of ensuring that students actually read the question. I hope these are worthy! I will be using these as starters or plenaries. I haven’t used logos to avoid any copyright issues. Hyperlinks added…

Practice for the skills required to find a percentage of an amount; not difficult but designed for non-calculator use ultimately and checks skills such as multiplying and dividing by 100, decimals, converting between fractions, decimals and percentages before asking a few percentage of an number questions.

I had this idea whilst driving home tonight thinking that I could do with some more stuff on bearings. The idea is for student to practice all the skills involved in bearings problems (angle properties on lines, around a point, triangles and parallel lines as well as scale) and then move on to solving some actual bearing problems. I have designed it in the shape of a wall to show that we build up to the summit. Obviously with this topic, scale is more of an issue but I hope it’s useful… (error corrected)

This takes students through everything they will need to know about sets and Venn diagrams, building up to the hardest type of question (hence the name).

I have concentrated on the algebra rather than linking to graphs of functions as I’m not sure at GCSE that the graphs are overly helpful for solving function notation problems; I will eventually get on to transforming functions which will tackle this (size could be an issue in the format though). This goes from simple function machines, through substitution, rearranging formulae and links them to functions questions. This started off as a request from a former colleague who bemoaned the lack of function notation resources, which is a fair point at present, I think.

This takes students through the skills required to answer vectors questions and some vectors questions from adding vectors to describing routes to proof.

This details the skills required to perform GCSE proofs up to grade 8/9 building up from the basics to the more complicated questions.

This covers from simple finding pairs of integers up to completing the square, including completing the square and the quadratic formula. I will put solving graphically on a another one as there wasn’t room here.

Working up from simple fraction of a number to adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing mixed numbers with everything in between, including a “Show that” question which always seems to confuse some.

Working its way up from symmetry to negative and fractional scale factor enlargements; the diagrams are as big as I can make them in the format so sorry if they are a bit small.