Four “Crack The Safe” activities on fractions: adding/subtracting, multiplying/dividing, mixed numbers and fraction of an amount. Each contains six questions and ten possible answers. The reason behind this is to allow students to check their own answers whilst the teacher can spend time with anyone who requires more help. I find these work nicely as starters or plenaries but obviously you can use them however you like.

These are standard pyramids that lead to the punchline for a cheesy joke which should hopefully make them a little more desirable, but you never know. Typo corrected!

This does exactly what ot says on the tin; I want my classes to get used to using multipliers instead of “divide by 100, multiply by the percentage you want” in readiness for percentage calculations later on in the curriculum. This is not the most challenging but offers an opportunity for students find multipliers. It is a great joke mind you.

Six questions and ten possible answers on bearings; this allows students to self-mark as if their answer does not appear then they need to check their work. I would tend to use these for starters or plenaries but obviously you have your own choice.

Find where the images of the coordinates are following a transformation, reveal the joke and then (possibly) laugh.

Four shapes on a coordinate grid each. Describe the transformation given the description of where the points have moved and which points are invariant.

Six questions with ten possible answers so students can self-mark these questions (if their answer is not an option they need to check what they did). This involves facts about 2D and 3D shapes including edges, vertices, number of sides etc. I would use this as starter or plenary.

Find the formulae to calculate how many Snickers bars Mr T fires at the walker and the swimmer. Starts off with numerical problems then moves onto general formulae.

Having been asked to help some students (Years 9 and 10) who lacked confidence in class I decided to write these four sheets that we will go through together; the questions are designed to get increasingly difficult and to encourage questions and discussion. There are also various answers for some of the questions, another chance for a mathematical discussion. Topics covered include simplifying expressions, indices, expanding brackets (and therefore factorising) and basic algebraic fractions. The questions are varied in the hope of not allowing students to get into a rut and answer without thinking carefully. I have also introduced the word and symbol “identity”. I hope it is useful.

Either sketch, figure out the equation, state intersections with axes or state maxima/minima of these trigonometric functions or a combination. There are 10 of increasing difficulty and hopefully discussions in class will be forthcoming…

Four maths "spiders" of increasing difficulty designed to make students think a littel. Tne first two allow students to invent their own original expressions which should lead to good discussion in class where students demonstrate the depth of their understanding. This does get on to expanding brackets and simplifying.

Six matching activities: 1 mode, 1 median, 1 mean, 1 mixture (all include frequency tables), 2 grouped data. These are designed to be starters or plenaries but could be used as a whole lesson activity if you wish.

Answer the questions, swap the numbers for letters and unjumble them to find my next destination.

This is a different way to allow students to gain some practice in short bursts and helps introduce fractional indices. The point is to generate discussion in class whilst the students do some work.

Enlarge the shapes, form the punchline to a terrible joke. This involves negative and fractional scale factors where it’s possible.

Six different "spiders" moving through rectangles, triangles, trapeziums, circles and compound shapes. These are designed to prevent students hgetting in to a rut when answering questions and to encourage discussion. Ideally used as starter or plenary but could be used as a set of questions to consolidate new learning.

This is a set of questions finding upper and lower bounds using a technique given to me by a colleague in calling the number you are finding the bounds for a house and working out where the fences are. I have found this technique really popular with children and better than anything I was doing before. I hope you like it too.

This is designed to get students to think about algebra and substitution as well as knowing properties of number. This is looking at what you can substitute into an expression or a formula (so that rearranging is involved) to produce a given property. This is intended to create discussion and each question has multiple answers, some of which could be generalised therefore creating extra challenge for those who require it.

The usual thing involving grouped frequency tables as well as frequency tables, working forwards and backwards.

Clive is doing some vectors work this time and is confused once again. Can you check all his answers, correct them and explain where he's gone wrong. He's made some typical mistakes which should get everyone (students and teacher) talking.