Three different “Crack The Safe” activities taking students through calculating average and range from raw data, then through frequency table and finally to grouped frequency and estimating the mean etc. These are designed to create a bit of discussion but also allow students to self-mark as answer options are given. Good for a starter or plenary.

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). 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.

Four “Crack The Safe” activities on percentages. They work their way up from percentage of a number, through multipliers, percentage change and repeated percentage change. 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.

Two “Crack The Safe” activities on types of numbers and HCF/LCM. The two sheets are split into types of number and HCF/LCM 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.

This idea is from Craig Barton and is an excellent one (check them out his at website); essentially it is four questions based on the same information. There are four here which use volume, surface area, expressions, Pythagoras, trigonometry and angles in parallel lines as well as other topics. This really should create discussion and a deeper understanding of the topics covered on top of ensuring that students actually read the question. I hope these are worthy! I will be using these as starters or plenaries.

Three “Crack The Safe” activities on decimals (stuff related to decimals). There is one on calculating with decimals, one on equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages and one on recurring decimals. These contain six questions but ten possible answers (bar the equivalence worksheet) 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.

Two “Crack The Safe” activities on solving linear equations (one on two-step and one on more than two-step, including fractions and brackets). 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.

Two “Crack The Safe” activities on simultaneous equations: one on linear equations and one involving a quadratic or circle. These contain four questions but three possible answers for each question; this means 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 with the wrong answers offering an opportunity for discussion about what I have done in order to get that solution. Typo corrected!

Another “Crack The Safe” worksheet containing six questions, each with three possible answers, on algebraic fractions. These allow the teacher to leave those who understand the topic to try some and check that their answer appears in the options, whilst helping those who are less secure. I use these mainly as starters and plenaries.

Wordy proportion problems - read carefully!

These are supposed to prevent students using their calculators to do these entirely as they ask for the solution to be in a form that the calculator won’t give exactly. The jokes are predictably cheesy and they get increasingly difficult as you go through them.

This PowerPoint and three codebreakers takes students through bases; this should help students understand why we carry/borrow when calculating mentally.

Three more of the usual stuff; a load of questions that lead to the punchline of a lame joke. Number 1 was done ages ago (when I was doing film titles; yes, that long), in case you were wondering.

I needed something for a lesson on this and drew a blank so created this. It involves converting metres/second to kilometres/hour and vice versa, but also asks two questions converting imperial units to metric with approximate conversions given. It’s the usual format of “find the punchline to a terrible joke”.

Ten questions, each answers by four “students” but only one has got the answer correct; your class’ task is to work out where the other three went wrong. This is designed to be done as a starter or plenary and to create mathematical discussion but you can use them however you like obviously.

The usual stuff: answer the questions, find the punchline to a lame joke. This involves one speed-time graph and questions on acceleration and distance (area under the graph).

I have three more of these (obviously) but not one where one must multiply/divide algebraic fractions so I thought I’d write one. The usual terrible joke for students to find.

This is a 220+ slide PowerPoint with notes, diagrams, examples and questions based around the entire Edexcel A Level Applied course. It is obviously fully editable.

As ever, do the maths, get a punchline to a joke.

This has been half-complete for a while but I am looking for some more reasoning resources so decided to finish it. This involves the usual angles issues (on a line, around a point etc) as well as polygons and a slide of circle theorems.