Adult Numeracy, Functional Maths, and GCSE Resources

A light-hearted poem to celebrate International Pi Day and British Pie Week.  Pi Day is celebrated on 14th March every year (3.14) and British Pie Week is usually during the first full week of March.

In English classes this poem could be used as a discussion starter on the theme of food likes and dislikes, vegetarianism and diet.

In Maths classes it could be used as a humorous introduction to Pi.

Editor's notes

Love this  :) 

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.

NEW 8/2/22  answer sheet now also  available - visit our ANSWER SHEETS page for more information.
New 27/1/2022  A related interactive Wordwall activity (organisational and textual features) is now available to accompany this resource. 

A hastily put-together New Year resource based on a short Guardian article about the record breaking temperatures experienced in the UK on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

A PowerPoint set of L1-L2 reading, maths and writing tasks. All are based on information a recent UK.gov Home Office fact sheet about Prevent and Channel*. The fact sheet can be found online or downloaded from this page. Main Functional Maths coverage is reading and comparing whole numbers and percentages, and percentage-fraction equivalents. Some questions involve calculating percentages or checking the figures that are quoted in the text (Level 2).

An ESOL lesson embedding numeracy, diversity and British values, centred on the Spring Equinox and three festivals which happen around / on this day - Purim, Holi and Shunbun No Hi. Learners collect unfamiliar words on a vocabulary sheet and ask and answer questions to elicit meaning / explanation. There is a powerpoint to introduce the topic, using acronyms eg 7DIAW  - Seven Days In A Week to elicit key words, and lead to an explanation of what the Vernal Equinox is and when it is.

This is an adaptation of the excellent http://www.math-aids.com/Multiplication/Times_Tables_Target_Circles.html where learners have to do division and multiplication to complete a ‘target’. The advantage with this file is that it works offline, so you can print table activities, starters or extension activities ready for the class.

This is a MS Excel resource that is designed to be a useful resource for producing sheets for starter activities or homework. This also provides a tutor marking sheet. The sheet can be used to differentiate by choosing larger or smaller numbers, and can be addition or subtraction.

Editor’s note
Creates printable sheets of 20 problems (plus answer sheets). Clever and useful!

This is an Excel file with a basic odd/even activity. I took inspiration from Jean Thomas’ “Reveal the hidden shapes!” activity from 2005.

With this activity, the tutor can design a picture (or one learner can design a picture for another learner) and it produces a printable sheet. The learner then shades all the odd numbers on the sheet in one colour, and all the even numbers in a different colour – revealing a picture or a message.

There are no macros, so cross-compatibility with Excel shouldn’t be a problem.

This spreadsheet is designed to enable students to check their own work; but also to learn about what happens when you add two decimals, or multiply two fractions, and so on.

The spreadsheet consists of the following sheets: