Adult Numeracy, Functional Maths, and GCSE Resources

A set of cards that can be used to play a game where students have shares in a small company. Each group of three players receives ‘market updates’ in the form of cards that require them to divide a number in a ratio, or find the value of an amount given the value of part of the amount. Students are encouraged to keep full financial records. As a differentiation task for confident students, it is possible to calculate the percentage change in value of the shareholding at the end of the game.

A set of cards to cut out and ideally put in plastic balls or a jazzy box. Aimed at E2- E3 Functional Skills learners as an ice breaker, introductory lesson or for revision. Students need to work out the question and identify the maths skills they are using to answer it. Best printed onto card.
Questions are aimed to appeal to young adult students – e.g. clubbing, Facebook, food, mobiles, etc.
Questions cover the 4 operations, money, time, shapes and more.
26 cards. Includes Functional Maths mapping chart.

A set of cards where learners have to find percentages of money.
Note that it is percentage of not off – this should be discussed.

Use as a paired game. Learners share the cards between them, then both turn over one card each. They work out how much their card is worth then the “winner” or person whose card is worth more keeps both cards. Play continues until 1 player has all the cards.

Adapted from Emma Shaw’s Fractions of quantities top trump cards see below.

An activity to explore money management and negative numbers. Be prepared to signpost students if need be.

The activity starts with discussing who is most likely to get into debt and then by recognising that anyone can if they don’t have good money skills.

A game to help learners get to grips with the likelihood of selecting a particular thing at random. Students practise expressing probabilities as fractions, decimals and percentages. This activity avoids the taboos on dice and cards that some learners have. It also revises concepts such as multiples and “greater” and “less than”.

1 page cards to be cut out – give one set to each student (or pair of students), 1 page for student to complete, plus an answer sheet.

A set of cards where learners have to find fractions of money. I use this as a paired game where the learners share the cards between them, then both turn over one cardeach. They work out how much their card is worth then the “winner” or person whose card is worth more keeps both cards. Play continues until 1 player has all the cards.

‘I have…Who has?’ is a fast-paced coin counting game that has been adapted from a game on Super Teacher Worksheets

For the game to work correctly all of the worksheets need to be distributed to your students so some students may get more than one card. This could be used as a way to differentiate with the higher level students being given more cards to work with.

A wonderful dice game that will also improve money skills (addition and subtraction) and awareness of negative numbers.
Plus extension L2 statistics questions. Ideal for work skills students and fully mapped to L1 Functional Maths criteria.

Pay Day is a great adaptation of earlier bank balance games (Jane Marsh’s original E3-L1 version and Judith White’s adapted L2 business version both still availalbe – see below).
This version was written specially for Entry Level learners on job related provision and is designed to get learners to think about their own finances: both in terms of what affects their regular income and what they could potentially do to improve their own situation.
Ideal for (and fully mapped to) E2-E3 Functional Maths.

FDP Happy Families card game is a great way to reinforce and assess learners’ knowledge of fraction-decimal-percentage equivalents. 
With detailed instructions and ideas for alternative games.

Editor's note. Now fully updated to reflect the new 2018 Functional Skills content that comes into effect September 2019.