Investigation or project

A worksheet, outline or task sheet that involves independent research

Functional Skills maths across several levels.
A practical exercise involving estimation (of weight), weighing items and calculating range and mean.

Editor’s note
With detailed Functional Maths mapping

Level
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 3
Level 1
Maths
MSS1/L1.4
MSS1/E3.8
MSS1/E3.6
MSS1/E3.5
MSS1/E2.10
MSS1/E2.9
MSS1/E2.6
HD1/L1.4
MSS1/E2.5
HD1/L1.3
Functional Maths - measures, shape & space

This maths investigation brings awareness about reusable energy and therefore, sustainability. Students are asked to analyse data and make decisions through connecting a few different topics of mathematics such as large numbers, rational numbers (including ratio and scale), handling data and elements of geometry. Moreover, the project can be continued by English language tutors.

Level
Level 2
Level 1
English
Adult Literacy: writing composition (Wt)
Maths
Functional Maths - numbers and the number system
Functional Maths - handling information and data
General numeracy / maths
Context
Leisure, Hobbies, Travel & Tourism
Electrical, Electronics & Technology

This is a practical handling data task at L1 and L2 which uses the Internet to find the necesssary data in order to complete a Expenses claim form.

I work with Landbased students most of whom visit an exhibition at the Bath & West show ground. In this task they have to work out how much it will cost them to travel to the site and how much the entry fee is, then enter this information onto a expenses claim form as if they were submitting it to an employed to reclaim their costs.

For L2 students they need to find the actual cost of the fuel they use for the journey.

Level
Level 2
Level 1
Maths
Functional Maths - measures, shape & space
Functional Maths - handling information and data
General numeracy / maths
Context
Leisure, Hobbies, Travel & Tourism
Animals, animal care, farming & equine

I put this together to explore number calculations and word problems with a mixed group of adult learners, looking at estimating, ways of checking your calculations and ways of reversing calculations.

Level
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 3
Level 1
Maths
N1/L2.5
AN MSS1/L1.1 Add, subtract, multiply & divide sums of money and record
N1/L1.10
MSS1/E3.2
N1/E3.9
AN MSS1/E3.1 Add & subtract money using decimal notation
N1/E2.8
N1/E2.7
Functional Maths
Context
Retail Hospitality Customer service
Business & Money management

An activity using mobile phones. Students could also do a warm-up by measuring and weighing real phones (switched off)!

The lesson was designed for an E3 young learner class. The last section, using percentage changes, might suit stronger learners (L1 extension).

Editor’s note
Fully mapped to the Functional Maths criteria. Covers rounding whole nos. and decimals, money, percentages, fractions and area.

Level
Entry Level 3
Level 1
Maths
AN N2/L1.7
N2/L1.12
AN N2/L1.5 Calculate with decimals up to 2dp
N1/L1.8
MSS1/L1.9
N2/L1.2
N1/E3.7
N2/L1.10
Functional Maths
Context
Electrical, Electronics & Technology

The classic example of a tally is keeping track of how many cars of each colour go past in the street, but that is rather awkward to do in practice.

Use this presentation to save having to leave the comfort of the classroom! It is a PowerPoint slideshow of cars of various colours, to be projected onto the board. Tell learners to keep a tally of how many cars of each colour appear. Where a car has more than one colour, they should put it under the predominant colour.

E1 learners could focus on simply counting (for instance) all the red cars.

Level
Entry Level 1
Entry Level 2
Entry Level 3
Maths
HD1/E3.3
HD1/E2.5
HD1/E2.4
AN N1/E1.1 Count reliably up to 10 items
HD1/E1.2
Functional Maths - handling information and data
Context
Motor vehicles & Transport

Covers geometric drawings, area, perimeter, money, metric measures, tallies, line graphs and much more.
Fully mapped to the Functional Maths criteria and process skills. With answer sheet.

Editor’s note
Wonderful open ended project. Ideal for E3-L2 mixed ability groups.

Level
Entry Level 3
Level 1
Level 2
Maths
MSS2/L2.2
MSS2/L2.1
MSS2/L1.2
HD1/L2.1
MSS2/L1.1
HD1/L1.1
HD1/E3.1
MSS1/L1.8
Functional Maths
Context
Gardening & Horticulture

Mean, Mode, Median and Range: Investigation into house prices.

Students use www.rightmove.co.uk to explore house prices in areas of their choice. For example pairs of students could explore house prices in different cities in the UK.

They will need access to computers. You will also need to establish criteria before they start to collect their data so that like for like houses are being compared. For example all of the groups are to compare prices of 2 bedroom flats in the cities of their choice.

Level
Level 2
Level 1
Maths
HD1/L2.4
HD1/L2.3
HD1/L1.4
HD1/L1.3
Functional Maths - handling information and data
ICT
Functional Skills ICT: Finding and selecting information

Writing, discussion and research prompts particularly useful for sport students at all levels. Inspired by Carrie Bray’s “Giving beauty/hair advice” resource (see below).

You could cut out scenarios and use them to start a discussion, which could lead into individual or paired research and written responses. I’ve also used them to prompt email and letter writing with templates / frames for lower level learners.

Level
Entry Level 3
Level 1
Level 2
English
Functional English - speaking, listening & communicating
Functional English - writing
Context
Sport and fitness
Health, Social care, Early years

This resource has been designed using ideas in the popular Celebrity BMI resource (From Janet Wilkins – see below) already available on Skillsworkshop but adapted to suit the needs of Entry/ Level 1 learners.

Level
Level 1
Entry Level 3
Maths
General numeracy / maths
Functional Maths
Context
Health, Social care, Early years