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. 

8 May 2023 7pm improvements to page 4 extension question (upside down tear-off hints, scaffolding, etc.)  and other minor adjustments).
he first in a new series of Cost of Living resources. Use research on the increasing costs of homemade sandwiches to calculate original costs from the previous year. Plus a challenging extension question about misleading statistics in a related newspaper article.

Practise using reordering strategies with these extra E2 (E1 questions are in a separate Wordwall activity) questions for our recently updated E1-E2 Mental addition strategies (reordering) PDF worksheet (Maggie Harnew, 2005, updated Feb 2022). Match the correct answer to each addition problem. (Reordering involves adding up large numbers first and/or looking for pairs of numbers that add up to 10, 20, 30, etc.). Can be used independently of the original resource.

Practise using reordering strategies with these extra E1 (E2 questions are in a separate Wordwall activity) questions for our recently updated E1-E2 Mental addition strategies (reordering) PDF worksheet (Maggie Harnew, 2005, updated Feb 2022). Match the correct answer to each addition problem. (Reordering involves adding up large numbers first and/or looking for pairs of numbers that add up to ten. Can be used independently of the original resource.

Challenging set of  questions based on an infographic from a recent TV Licensing annual review.  Aimed at L1-2 but a few questions are Entry 2/3 - there are also  a couple of  "stretch questions" making a bridge to GCSE. Two main topics are covered: working with very large numbers and percentages. Extracting data, equivalents and ordering decimals are also touched upon.

This revision aid for L1/L2 (mainly L2) Pearson Edexcel Functional Skills maths gives a side-by-side comparison of perimeter, area and volume, the sort of units that would be involved with each and a worked Functional Skills example of each with a PAV mnemonic for remembering which is which. I have also looked through the last few years of Pearson Edexcel FS for the sorts of questions that require each one. 
Note: All images from Pixabay, so do not need crediting.

Editor's note

This is a handout for Functional Skills L1/L2 which talks about formulas, substitution and BODMAS (BIDMAS).

“Editor’s note*
It includes worked examples from past papers and useful tips and hints. Fully mapped to L2 FM and GCSE Maths 1-5

This is a set of worksheets in a MS Excel workbook that deals with fractions.
- Sheet one: a set of pictures (pie charts) that shows fractions from halves to tenths
- Sheet two: equivalent fractions with two pie charts, learners can input fractions and see if they are equivalent by looking at the shape of the pie charts
- Sheet three: starting to look at fractions being equivalent to decimals with two pie charts one for fractions and one for decimals

A set of Formula 1 scenarios based on the four rules of mathematics and using formulae expressed in words and/or numbers. This resource tests students’ ability to use formulae to solve problems based on a motor racing car travelling on a race track. Some of the scenarios test the students ability to convert units to get a sensible answer. I encourage my students to estimate the answers before attempting for real! Some do, some don’t …

An introductory PPT based task to find the value of the three words in ‘Happy New Year’, given certain values for each letter. This is followed up by a set of question cards on calculations with the letters of Happy New Year and an algebra worksheet with the same given values, using BODMAS.