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 I designed to make ordering fractions a bit more challenging for the more able in my group. Pupils are given 4 algebraic fractions, and must order them by size for particular values of the unknown. Solutions are provided.

Some questions on Bearings & right-angled Trigonometry that I designed for my Year 11 students. The worksheet is scaffolded - each question comes in a pair. In the first question, I have drawn the complete diagram for students. In the second question, the diagram has been drawn but not labelled - students must do this for themselves. Solutions are provided.

Pupils are given 36 integers (a mixture of positives and negatives) and have to put the numbers into a 6 x 6 grid so that every row and column is in ascending order. This gives them plenty of practice of ordering negative numbers by size. Solving the puzzle requires experimentation, so when I have used this in my lessons, I’ve put the sheets in plastic wallets and let pupils write on top using a whiteboard pen. There are many possible solutions; I’ve provided one. However, the smallest number (-28) must always go in the top left corner, and the largest (18) must always go in the bottom right.

UPDATED 16/09/22: Changed the font and added solutions. Included pdf version of the task too. A Bronze/Silver/Gold differentiated resource where pupils are given a list of fractions and a square grid. They have to put the fractions in the grid so that every row and column is in ascending order. The suggested method for doing so is to find a common denominator. There are many possible solutions to the puzzles, but I have provided one possible set of solutions as this was requested in the comments. In all solutions, the smallest fraction must always go in the top left corner, and the largest in the bottom right.

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!