Four sets of four problems where students have the answer but there are blanks in the questions which require filling in. This is designed to create discussion in class and hopefully provides natural differentiation (stretch the “top end” by finding the general solution where possible compared to finding a single solution). Whilst some of the questions can be answered without using algebra, this could be a way of convincing that the letters in algebra are just numbers! I will be using these as starters or plenaries as I believe they will develop deeper understanding of topics, but feel free to use them as you like.

Three “Crack The Safe” activities on standard form and surds (one on simplifying and one on expanding brackets and rationalising the denominator). These contain six questions but six possible answers for each question 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.

Four screens each with four questions that have the same answer but the question is missing information; can your class work out what information is missing? This is designed to create discussion (some questions have multiple answers possible and can be extended by asking students to find general solutions) and I intend to use these as starters. All these are number based questions involving fractions, percentages, ratio, directed numbers and more. I use these as starters; I put them on the board and students can get straight on with them upon their arrival.

Four screens each with four questions that have the same answer but the question is missing information; can your class work out what information is missing? This is designed to create discussion (some questions have multiple answers possible and can be extended by asking students to find general solutions) and I intend to use these as starters. All these are algebra based questions involving solving equations, inequalities, equations of lines, formulae and more. I use these as starters; I put them on the board and students can get straight on with them upon their arrival.

Just one “Crack The Safe” activity on arithmetic sequences involving finding terms and finding the nth term. These are designed to allow students to self-check whilst the teacher helps those who require it by offering three possible answers for each question so if their answer isn’t there, they must check what they’ve been doing. I use these as starters or plenaries but you can use them how you wish.

I just wanted something that covers bar graph; this covers “normal”, comparative and composite bar graphs and is designed, in two cases at least, to create discussion.

Taking students all the way from pictograms, through bar charts, pie charts, stem-and-leaf, scatter graphs, frequency diagrams, cumulative frequency, box plots and histograms. The graphs are as large as I can make them and should be ok if copied on to A4.

Worded pie chart questions with a terrible joke to unravel; my Year 7s enjoyed it as a starter…

This involves negative and fractional indices meaning that calculators are pretty much redundant. The joke made my class groan…

This is a set of eight slides, each with five questions and answers; the students must work out whether the answers given are correct. There is also, with each set of questions, confirmation of whether each answer is correct or not but no method done on purpose allowing student to demonstrate their understanding. These are designed to create discussion in class and I have found that asking students what mistake has been made offers an extra challenge.

Four slides each with four questions where they have the answer but not all the information in the question. This is designed to get the students to think and demonstrate their understanding by working backwards from answer to question. These have been quite successful for encouraging discussion in class and being an extension task.

Two worksheets, each with four questions. The first revolves around drawing the graphs given the data, the second revolves around interpreting.

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 concept: do some maths to find the punchline to a cheesy (fish-related) joke. These work well both online and in class due to the answer spelling something so students know whether they are doing it right (or wrong!) quite quickly. There are two codbreakers here: one on expanding a bracket and one on factorising into a single bracket. Typos corrected…

Use one of the three calculations given to find the answers to the questions and reveal a rather good joke (if you like golf). these are popular with students and ideal for either using in class, online or as a homework in my experience. This could be used at KS3 or KS2 i think.

I’m teaching Further Maths Level 2 for the first time in a few years so thought I would produce some resources for it of which this is one. Set up and solve equations using your knowledge of multiplying matrices basically. I am particularly proud of the joke!!!

Two codebreakers: one of frequency tables and one with grouped frequency. The usual; you know how these work by now… Typo corrected…

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

Some questions that students have to figure out then find the position on the number line; it spells out an anagram to a terrible joke. This is a slightly different type of codebreaker in looks due to the subject matter but hopefully as effective as the usual ones.

Answer the currency conversion question reveal a joke; good for starters or plenaries as well as main tasks but also useful due to the fact that they are self-marking so students know that they understand what to do quite quickly.