Mobile Phones

Students are presented with two mobile phone tariffs and have to explore at what point one tariff becomes better value than the other. They have to select a way of comparing the tariffs using appropriate graphs or tables, work systematically to explore the effects of changing the amount of time the phone is in use and find a relationship between the time used and the cost. The students have to communicate their findings and conclusions clearly. Teacher guidance includes concepts which may be discussed with students, examples of probing questions which may be useful and assumptions that students need to make when completing the task. The assessment guidance consists of a progression table detailing how students may improve in each of the key processes. The resource concludes with a number of examples of students' work, together with comments, probing questions and feedback. This resource was produced by the Bowland Charitable Trust.