Lionel is a decent mathematician but will not write his method down so loses loads of marks in exams etc. Can your students help Lionel write full solutions? Here Lionel tackles averages, pie charts and probability (expected outcomes).

Lionel is pretty good at Maths but won’t show any workings; he therefore loses marks in tests and assessments. Can your classes show Lionel how to achieve full marks?

Lionel’s pretty good at Maths but shows no workings whatsoever; this means he gets very few marks even though he gets stuff correct or partly correct. Students need to show Lionel how to write a full solution so he can maximise his marks. The whole point of this is to get students discussing the steps to a successful solution. This involves forming and solving equations, substitution and algebraic fractions amongst other things.

Hazel shows no workings, Mabel makes errors. Each gets marks (or not as the case may be) for questions but Mabel gets more even when Hazel is correct. This idea was from a colleague who wanted to emphasise the importance of showing a clear method and the potential to get more marks even with an incorrect answer. The intention is to get students to discuss where marks are gained and where they are lost as well as them correcting Mabel.

Lionel is a great mathematician but won’t write any workings. He keeps losing marks as a result. Can you give full solutions so that Lionel understands how he can achieve full marks?

This resource uses tables when expanding and factorising but you can edit if you want to do something else. Essentially this leads students through forwards and backwards through expanding and factorising two brackets, and should lead to discussion. There is an extension where a is not 1.

Yet another one of these; answer the questions, figure out the anagram, laugh a very tiny bit (or groan)… students seem to like them.

The usual “answer the questions, reveal the punchline” this time involving finding the equation of a normal to to curve.

Find the equation of the tangent to a curve at a given point and reveal the joke (I apologise, I made it up at about 3am). Something different in an A Level class or a challenge in an IGCSE class…

Four slides each with five questions on answered either correctly or incorrectly; students must decide whether each given answer is correct or incorrect then explain why. These work nicely as a reasoning activity at the end of a lesson or topic in my experience but use them how you like (or don’t).

Each slide contains five questions that have been answered, but not necessarily correctly. Your class need to discuss whether the answer given is correct or not and find the correct answer if not. These bring up common errors and lots of discussions. Areas covered: substitution, inverses, composite, domain & range.

Six questions and diagrams designed to help students get used to using the area formula involving trigonometry. This does what it says on the tin and students fill in the blanks…

Five questions each on finding a side and finding an angle using the Sine Rule, with gaps to fill in, working forwards and backwards. This was designed as an introduction to the Sine Rule but use it (if you do at all) however you like…

Two sets of questions (one on calculating a side, one on calculating an angle) using the cosine rule, allowing students to place measurements in the formula and work backwards from formula to diagram. This is intended for use when introducing the formula to students but you know your students better than me so use it (or don’t) however you like.

Six questions, ten answer options. The questions are all based around similar shapes. These are good for students to just get on with as the answers appear on the sheet.

Four questions, ten possible answers. Students seem to like these and can just get on with them as answers appear on the sheet. This only involves the cosine rule.

Based on the daytime gameshow where one question has three options: one correct, one incorrect but correct in a different context, one impossible (wrong). This is designed to test students’ knowledge then their reasoning to find which are the incorrect and impossible answers and why. Topics include: area, angles (parallel lines and polygons), circle theorems, vectors, transformations and more. There are 12 questions…

This is an activity based on the daytime quiz show “Impossible” where a question is asked and three options given: one correct, one incorrect but could be correct if the question was slightly different (partial answer), and one that is impossible (cannot be the answer). This is designed to be a discussion/reasoning activity where students find the correct answer then discuss why the other two options are impossible or incomplete. Topics include HCF, fractions, percentages, bounds, standard form, ratio, proportion, indices.

This is based upon the concept of the gameshow called “Impossible” (I watch daytime TV in the holidays, sadly) where each question has three options: one correct, one partially correct and one impossible. I ask students to find the correct answer and then explain why the other two options are either impossible or only partially correct. This one involves algebra topics like simplifying expressions, factorising, sequences, equations of lines, inequalities, quadratic equations, function notation, rearranging formulae etc. There are twelve questions altogether.

A bunch of codebreakers (30 I think, with answers) on various topics, including Venn diagrams (probability), set notation, vectors (including calculations), turning points of quadratics (completing the square), transformations, truncation/error intervals, sale prices, properties of number, circle theorems, product rule for counting, identities, midpoints, domain/range of functions, currency conversion, density, capture/recapture. These are good for any stage of a lesson or homework and are easy to mark as they should spell out the punchline to a joke. All these codebreakers are available individually for free.