Adult Numeracy, Functional Maths, and GCSE Resources

A quick but very useful match-up activity that makes a good starter activity for financial literacy or employment skills courses - and it's bound to prompt discussion.

Editor's note

Written for an Australian audience but I have added a UK version on page 2.  Learners can draw lines to match the items or, for a reusable resource, the page could be laminated and/or cut into 12 cards. 

Reading and related activities focusing on a simplified version of a BBC news article reporting the results of the 2021 Australian Census. Ideal for practising reading strategies including:  relating images to text, using headings, skimming, scanning and using context to predict. My (Australian) students found it challenging but were engaged in the content. Lots of possible ways it could lead into other written and oral activities. Numbers and a graph involved so can also be used to revise numeracy concepts such as percentages and extracting information from graphs.

Comprehensive, step by step 12 page workbook.
Students must research their own budgets and local financial institutions before making major financial decision such as costing an event and taking out a loan to buy a car.
Covers money, decimals, ratio and percentages (interest rates). Fully mapped to E2-L1 Functional Maths.

Two differentiated investigations: one aimed at E3 learners, the other at L1.
Each covers a wide range of skills – including measures, bar charts, sell by dates, shapes and money. The L1 version includes a ‘best-buy’ section and fractions.
Adapted from previous Skillsworkshop resources including Easter Numeracy (Carrie Bray 2010) and Easter Eggs – Value for money? (Judith White, 2012). These can be found under “See also” below.
Tutor warning

[img_assist|nid=5487|title=|desc=|link=popup|align=left|width=100|height=78]This is an activity to calculate best deals etc based on a Telegraph article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/iphone/10322347/iPhone-5s-a…
The article was written on September 20th.

I am Going to use it with a L1 Functional Skills Maths group.

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.

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.

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.

Page 1: 8 maths questions relating to olympic torch
Page 2: Picture quiz: who is carrying the torch?
Page 3: Picture quiz: famous UK landmarks.
Page 4: UK cities – anagrams
Page 5: Answers

• Quizzes on pages 2 and 3 make good ice breakers and can also be used for SL&C discussion prompts.

Inspired by Judith White’s autumn apple cake resource (ratios, converting measures, formulae, etc.) this series of open ended tasks focuses on the importance of showing working out and explaining/justifying their conclusions. It also helps students get used to the idea that some maths questions do not have just one “correct” answer.

The theme is baking several cakes for a charity event and making a profit.
You will need Judith’s original recipe (see below) to complete some of the tasks. Fully mapped to the Functional Maths criteria.