A fun Power Point about Rowan Hamilton's discovery of Quaternions. There are no actual formulas given here (just a hint that it's about 4D space), the point of the presentation is just that he had a brain wave while crossing a bridge and carved it into the bridge. Can be used with a junior class talking about 'inspiration' or a more senior class who know about complex numbers if you want to go into the actual equations of quaternions.

A fun presentation for pupils to try and guess what each magnified image is. Can also be used in a more advanced way to try and work out the (length) and (area) scale factors between the original picture and the answer.

Two pages of simplification, beginning easy (finding fractions equivalent to 1/2) and building up to more difficult questions (simplify 14/49). The aim is to highlight the similarity between finding equivalent fractions and simplifying, so pupils will recognise that they are really the same thing. Good for lower ability classes.

Some not very exciting but essential practice, with increasingly difficult questions such as - 1/4 of 24 - two thirds of 12 - increase £20 by a fifth - find two fifths of £11 - decrease £9.99 by a tenth

Pupils add fractions by shading squares. Simple at first, but gradually they build up to understanding why for example 1/2 + 1/3 = 5/6 Good for lower ability classes who benefit from a visual representation

A series of four worksheets to progressively introduce pupils to the idea of adding and subtracting fractions by matching the denominators. Rather than just presenting it to them as a rule, they work through simple examples to gain an understanding of what is happening. I wrote this out of frustration with a poor class who simply didn't seem to understand how fractions worked, and although they could memorise a method, would then misapply it (for example, trying to add three fractions with them was a disaster, until they actually understood what they were doing)

Four Power Point slides on sequences - the first is simple ‘what comes next’ - the second is counting matchsticks and finding a formula - the third is formally finding a linking formula between ‘S’ and ‘T’ - the fourth is more practice finding and using the relationship between ‘S’ and ‘T’ If you like more challenging ‘What Comes Next’ problems see my separate resource on that. A practice test on sequences. Full solutions attached.

Two Power Point slides of lesson starters for Distance Speed Time. The first involves reading a timetable, converting the time from hours and minutes to hours, then finding a speed (and for advanced pupils thinking about why the speed is so slow). The second will take longer and involves converting m/s to km/h, then an extended question about a boat journey which involves a few calculations then drawing a distance-time graph. Solutions included on the Power Points.

A worksheet with four pre-printed distance-time graphs for pupils to interpret. Their answers should be sentences such as "go at 4 metres per second for 3 seconds, then pause for 2 seconds, then ..."

A simple world map Starter Question introducing the idea of co-ordinates with longitude and latitude.

Tired of BODMAS? Try some exciting challenges! The first involves solving some problems and getting some letters, unscrambling them to find a city. Then you can make up your own. The second is dome tricky expressions. The third explores and unusual relationship between squares and cubes, which only works if you get your BODMAS correct.

A group activity to practice using bearings. Each group designs a route (choosing how many paces and how many bearings for each leg of the journey) then swaps with another group to see if they can follow the given route. Each group will need a compass (or compass app on phone).

Two starters on calculating back bearings. The first relies on estimating bearings, the second on calculating a back bearing from a given bearings.

A simple one-page practice on finding the area of lots of circles given the diameter or radius. Later questions are just fractions of circles.

Everything you need to revise angles! The first Power Point covers - types of angle, angles in circle (360), angles on a straight line (180), angles in a triangle (180), corresponding and alternate angles, right angled and isosceles triangles The second Power Point covers - a big one-slide recap, a challenging question, places you might see some of the shapes involved

A powerpoint of short mixed revision questions. On the topics of negative numbers, brackets, solving equations, expand and simplify and then mixed revision. Can be used as a starter or revision.

Three different 'think of a number' activities for pupils to work through, be amazed by, and then investigate the algebra.

Three Power Points introducing forming and solving equations in a fun context. The first leads pupils to an equation like x + 5 The second leads pupils to an equation like 2(x+5) The third is more complicated and involves x on both sides of the equation

A series of simple questions for pupils to answer on mini-whiteboards (or any other way). Topics here are combining simple terms and multiplying out brackets.

A set of Powerpoints revising all aspects of National 5 Mathematics. Useful for extended lesson starters or exam revision. These are the Powerpoints N5 Calculator Revision N5 Non-Calculator Revision N5 Topic by Topic Revision N5 Mixed Revision Set A N5 Mixed Revision Set B N5 Mixed Revision Set C (Harder) All provided with answers. Edit: Nov 2024 updated answers in Non-Calculator Revision