Yet another of these - moving from basics to quadratics and everything inbetween.

Four “Crack The Safe” activities on ratio and proportion: three on ratio and one on proportion, although the ratio problems sheet has a couple of inverse proportion problems. These contain six questions but ten possible answers meaning that students can self-check their answers (are they in the list of possible answers?) whilst the teacher can help those who require it. I use these as starters and plenaries but that is obviously up to you. The emphasis in the ratio sheets is upon worded questions so discussion may be generated here.

Two distance-time graphs to interpret and find the punchline to a terrible joke; the usual malarky…

Find the next term in each sequence - if it is even, colour in the square, if not, leave it blank. Use a QR scanner and it links to a great song by Andy Burrows called ‘Keep On Moving On’, which was as close as I could get to a song about sequences! I generated the QR code using qrstuff.com.

Six matchings involving set notation and shading Venn diagrams. Hopefully these will encourage discussion in the classroom and they are designed as starters or plenaries where students, since most of the answers are there, are encouraged to try harder problems than they might normally do.

Six maths "spiders" designed to test whether students can substitute in to formulae correctly. The spiders get increasingly difficult and are designed so that they have to think and possibly discuss their answers rather get on a "substitution treadmill". I know people use these for starters/plenaries and I have used them as tasks in lessons.

This takes students through the skills required to solve differentiation problems at GCSE and IGCSE level.

I saw a discussion on Twitter (@McGuirea499 I’ve been reminded) with a diagram where students form equations from diagrams and I thought it looked interesting. I have produced three diagrams where students can do the same thing, getting progressively more challenging but allowing students with any degree of understanding of basic algebra the opportunity to contribute (I hope!).

My intention is to use this as a "first lesson back" task to get students talking and recalling maths facts involving number, algebra, geometry and data. The joke is terrible (it's been all over Twitter this week, which is what pushed me to do this) but they all are for this kind of task. My classes enjoy these; hopefully yours will too.

I found the cartoon on the first slide on Twitter (I'm sorry, I forget where) and I thought that my students could probably brush up on their Pythagorean triples like Batman. This was the result. The Powerpoint is animated and the Notebook file has screen shades, depending on the software at your disposal and your preference. There is a table of answers on the final slide of both files too.

Scooby and the gang are pursuing various ghosts/monsters on different curves but health and safety have visited Mystery Incorporated and told them the gradients that are safe to drive/slide along. Can you help Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy and Scooby with these curvy conundrums?

Four spiders, two with curve and two involving trigonometric functions. These are designed to be used as starters or plenaries but they also work as consolidation activities.

Seven sets of five questions and solutions, some of which are correct and some of which are not, the students decide and explain how they have come to their decision. There are slides on simplifying expressions, substitution, expanding and factorising expressions including quadratics, rearranging formulae and algebraic fractions. These are designed to create discussion in class. Hyperlinks now working!

There are 8 slides involving 5 questions on each. Answers are given for each question but students must decide whether those answers are correct. There are also “answer slides” but no explanation intentionally because this should invite discussion. The slides move through Pythagoras, trigonometry in right-angled triangles, whether the triangle is right-angled or not, exact trigonometric values, trigonometry in non-right-angled triangles including some worded problems. As I said before, the whole point of these is to create discussion points in class. Hyperlinks now work; sorry for neglecting this initially!

Clive is doing some homework involving error in measurement and is getting a bit confused. He has made some mistakes that you need to correct and explain to him where he's gone wrong; the homework contains just stating bounds as well as calculations that require thinking more carefully about. This really makes students check their explanations and generates good academic discussion in my experience as well as allowing students to demonstrate the depth of their knowledge.

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.

This is designed to be used as a starter or plenary: Can you help Phineas and Ferb calculate the missing sides on the rollercoaters they are building? Dr Doofenshmirtz also needs to know if his Snailanator ray will hit Agent P.

Eight slides each containing five problems that have been either answered correctly or incorrectly; the students’ job is to find out which and why. These are designed to create discussion and use common errors in some solutions. Covered here are simplifying indices and surds, rationalising the denomination, expanding brackets with surds and fractional/negative indices and more.

This is a task involving the four rules (add, subtract, multiply, divide) with negative numbers. Basically students fill in the blanks but there could be discussion about different answers etc.

This takes students through six matching activities, three on finding sides and three on finding angles. Designed to create discussion and to be used as a starter/plenary but use how you wish if you choose to download it.