An activity that gets students to practise finding fractions of amounts, which also introduces an element of problem solving. Students create their own questions. They pick a numerator, pick a denominator, and work out that fraction of the large number at the top of the screen. They’re aiming to create calculations with the given answers on the screen. Some students might pick their fractions completely at random, whereas others may approach things a bit more logically… There are 6 different activities, with varying degrees of difficulty. Some answers can be made via more than one calculation, but I’ve made a suggestion on how to complete each problem.

As there isn’t really any new content to learn when studying Indices in Year 12, I wanted to find a way to make my lesson a bit more interesting - hence this relay. I’ll let my students get stuck into this straight away (in teams) so I discover what they can/can’t do - far better than standing at the front teaching them things they already know! Questions are differentiated by difficulty (1, 2 and 3 stars). The questions are in a completely random order, so Question 20 (for example) isn’t necessarily harder than Question 8. I’ve included answers, and I’ve also included the Word version of the relay in case you want to make any changes, e.g. if you disagree with my difficulty rating!

This resource is for students who are confident with Linear and Quadratic Sequences. It covers: Finding the nth term of a linear sequence Finding the nth term of a quadratic sequence Generating sequences Verifying whether a given number is in the sequence Finding missing terms in linear sequences Full answers are provided.

A task I designed to challenge some high-ability students. There are 9 questions on Multiplying Mixed Numbers, each one missing a digit. Students have to work out the missing digit in each calculation. Each of the numbers 1 - 9 will be used exactly once. Answers are provided.

As there isn’t any new content to learn when studying Surds in Year 12, I wanted to find a way to make my lesson a bit more interesting - hence this relay. I’ll let my students get stuck into this straight away (in teams) so I discover what they can/can’t do - far better than standing at the front teaching them things they already know! Questions are differentiated by difficulty (1, 2 and 3 stars). The questions are in a completely random order, so Question 20 (for example) isn’t necessarily harder than Question 8. I’ve included answers, and I’ve also included the Word version of the relay in case you want to make any changes, e.g. if you disagree with my difficulty rating!

I really liked Don Steward’s task on equable parallelograms (https://donsteward.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/equable-parallelograms.html) but wanted some questions that were a little bit easier for my Year 10 group, so I designed these. In each of paralleograms on the sheet, the area is equal to the perimeter. Students should use this fact to set up an equation, which they can solve to find the value of the unknown. Solutions are provided.

Inspired by “The Simple Life” - a task from Colin Foster: https://nrich.maths.org/13207 I wanted a simpler version to suit my weaker group. Students are given a variety of algebraic expressions in the form a(bx + c) and must pick 2 to add up. They are given 8 answers to aim for. Possible solutions are provided - there may be other solutions, I’m not really sure!

A Tarsia puzzle (jigsaw puzzle) on finding the nth term of Quadratic Sequences. Pieces need to be cut out, and students have to work out the nth term of each sequence, and match it with the answer. I wasn’t able to upload the Tarsia file itself, so you can’t make any edits unfortunately. There is a pdf document of the puzzle, and the solution is also included.

Designed for Higher GCSE Students to review their knowledge of equations of straight lines, in particular finding the equation: Between 2 points When given the gradient and a point When given a parallel line and a point Also requires an understanding of the relationship between the gradients of two lines that are perpendicular. In each line of the table, students are given some of the information about a straight line - and have to fill in the missing information!

A task designed to make simplifying algebraic fractions a little more interesting. Students are given 24 expressions and must use them to create 12 algebraic fractions (no repeats). The aim is to create 12 algebraic fractions that can all be simplified. I’ve provided a solution to show it is possible, but there may be more than one solution! I’ve used this with a Year 12 class but it could also be suitable for able KS4.

Used with an able Year 10 group as a way to revise factorising into single brackets. Students are given a partially completed multiplication grid with algebra, and must deduce what expressions go in the remaining boxes. As a starting point, look at the 3rd column: by factorising 6x + 8 and 15x + 20, we deduce that (3x + 4) must go at the top of this column. Solutions are provided.

I like to use the grid method for expanding double brackets, and then I use the grid method “in reverse” to factorise non-monic quadratics. To introduce this idea of working “in reverse”, I created these 2 worksheets. Students are already given the four terms inside the grid, and they have to determine what the brackets around the outside must be.

A Tarsia activity to help students become familiar with function notation f(x), by substituting values into functions, composite functions, and inverse functions. There are 16 pieces to the puzzle - students substitute values into functions and match that piece up to its answer on another card. When completed, the 16 pieces form a square. To make things a bit more challenging, some functions do not have an answer to match with - these will go around the outside of the completed square. The 3 functions f(x), g(x) and h(x) that students need to complete the puzzle are in the PNG file - these can be projected onto the whiteboard while students work. Note that I haven’t provided students with the Inverse Functions - students must derive them on their own. Sadly, I was not able to upload the Tarsia file itself, just a pdf version, so you cannot make any edits yourself.

I wanted a resource where students had to factorise monic quadratics that only had positive terms, so I created this task. Students factorise each of the given quadratics into double brackets. They cross off each bracket in the grid at the bottom of the page - each bracket appears multiple times, but it doesn’t matter which one they cross off. Once students have factorised every quadratic, their grids will probably all look different, but they will all have 8 letters left that weren’t crossed off that can be re-arranged to spell BUDAPEST.

A quick (less than 30 mins) investigation that I did with my Year 7s on Semiprimes.

In each block of the maze, students are given a value and a percentage they should decrease it by. An answer is given (the large number in each block). Students try to find a way through the maze, left to right, that only goes through correct answers (moving diagonally is not allowed!). Solutions provided.

A presentation I designed to help me deliver the “Number Families” task from nrich (https://nrich.maths.org/13123). Rather than jumping straight in to set notation, it starts off getting pupils to list what they know about certain numbers. Then they imagine that numbers that share a certain property can be placed in the same “bucket”. This idea of a “bucket” is then used to introduce set notation.

An activity that gets pupils to practise division problems where the answer is a decimal, a skill which is motivated by a need to find approximations to the irrational number pi. There are 3 different levels of questions for pupils to attempt. Some of the questions really are quite challenging!

This is very similar to the excellent activity from danielabbott89 - https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/mean-from-a-frequency-table-amazon-reviews-6323431 However, the products in that resource are now a bit out of date, so I wanted to make a resource that would have a bit more longevity. Students have to work out the average (mean) rating given by Amazon users to various products - the data is real! The data is presented as a frequency table. Solutions are provided (to 2 decimal places). A good resource to use in a poster-making lesson!

Designed to go with Chapter 2 of the Echo Express 1 book. Students have to look for school subjects vocabulary in the Boggle-like grid (the words they’re looking for are provided). Unlike a normal wordsearch, you can go diagonally, sideways, backwards etc. to find the next letter in the word. An example of how to find the word “Erdkunde” is provided.