In this Bowland assessment task, students are asked to calculate the average amount of time Santa can spend in each house in the UK on Christmas Eve. Students are presented with facts about the population of the UK and constraints by which Santa must abide. They are then required to make reasonable assumptions and...

This Bowland assessment task requires students to list all the outcomes when the numbers on two spinners are added together and calculate the probability of each outcome. Students analyse three bingo cards to determine which is the most likely to win and are required to design a bingo card which has the best chance...

Archimedes’ Spirals: SMILE card 1998 is a booklet of activities beginning by explaining...

In this Bowland assessment task, students are required to design a sports bag for a sports company. The bag is in the shape of a cylinder. Students draw the net of the bag from the given dimensions and consider how the three pieces of the bag, the main body of the bag and the two circular ends, should be cut from a...

The Nuffield Foundation provide this activity for students to consider the difficulties in using real data, from the Department of Trade and Industry, to identify which sport is the most dangerous to participate in. The data includes the age and gender of patients requiring treatment at a sample of hospitals after...

A Year 11 module from the Salters’ Key Stage Four double award science course. The context for this module is the use of scientific ideas to explain human performance. Students discuss what is meant by being ‘fit’. They compare different uses of the word 'work' and are...

This resource from the Nuffield Foundation provides simulated information regarding an invoice, phone bill and bank statement. Each document contains several errors and students will have to check the details carefully to establish the correct values. Copies of the invoice, phone bill and bank statement with gaps...

The Nuffield Foundation provide this resource which can be used to introduce the shape and main features of proportional, linear, inverse proportional, and quadratic graphs. Different versions of Excel spreadsheets allow students to explore how the shape and the position of a graph changes when the constants in its...

This resource contains ten instant maths ideas using spreadsheets to solve mathematical problems. Mathematical topics explored include: * solving equations to complete a think of a number puzzle * completion of magic squares * exploring different sequences * the ‘Rich Aunt’ problem * an exploration of cubic graphs...

This resource from SMILE contains 21 activities for using spreadsheets to solve mathematical problems. Teachers' notes give advice on appropriate ways of using the activity and identifying particular support students may need when using a spreadsheet.

The activities are:

Favourite colours...

This Science upd8 activity draws on the 1957 launch of the satellite Sputnik 1 which heralded a new stage in human exploration and prompted the development of rockets in the Space Race. In this role play, students consider the benefits and costs of space exploration. 

This task is designed to assess how well students understand applying Pythagoras’ theorem to finding the gradient of a slope.

The task looks at points plotted on a set of axes. The points are joined to make a quadrilateral. The first task is to calculate the length and slope of each side. Students must then...

This resource from Inquiry Maths states "a square fits into a circle better than a circle fits into a square" leading to a rich task exploring areas, ratios and percentages.

A square fits better in a circle than a circle fits in a square describes the prompt and suggests a variety of ways in...

This Practical Action resource presents a fun hands-on and brains-on challenge for Key Stages Two to Five.

The problem:...

This activity involves matching 3-D shapes with plans and elevations. It may be suitable for group work. The first page of the handout shows an example of a 3-D shape with the plan, front and side elevations. There are five other pages of diagrams to be duplicated to make a card sort for the ten 3-D shapes.

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