The ‘new normal’ – distance learning and remote classrooms
Lettings management solutions can keep schools at the heart of the community Kajima
Python in Pieces 2Simple
Five reasons you should have Mac in your school JTRS
Transition students from block coding to Python with 2Simple’s new award-winning platform 2Simple
Teach Early Years Magazine Subscribe today!
Teach Primary Magazine Subscribe today!
Teach Secondary Magazine Subscribe today!
Technology and Innovation Magazine Order now!
Teach Reading and Writing Magazine Order now!
Oxford University Press Courses
LCM and HCF are areas students often confuse, so these resources will help you make sure they know their factors from their multiples and offer some engaging activities to let the lessons sink in
Improve hand-eye coordination – KS3/KS4 PE lesson plan
Safeguarding in schools – 5 key challenges when pupils go back
Area of a circle – KS3 maths lesson plan
‘The What Factor?’ takes the ideas of highest common factor and lowest common multiple, which are often taught separately, and deals with them together to help learners to appreciate the connections between them.
Get this Colin Foster KS4 lesson plan here.
The topics of factors and multiples – leading from earlier work on understanding multiplication and division, partitioning, making systematic lists and arranging items in different ways – can sometimes feel a little stale to teach.
Once we start talking about highest common factor and lowest common multiples and referring to them using their familiar acronyms (HCF/LCM), you might feel as if there is no innovation to be had in this area at all.
So here are some ideas that you can use over a series of lessons, and over a flexible time period, that suits the needs of your particular class.
Check out this article from Lucy Rycroft-Smith here.
In this article, the NRICH team share four of their favourite activities for developing a greater understanding of HCFs and LCMs. Each activity encourages your students to work mathematically, justifying their solutions and considering alternative approaches to problems.
Getting started on a problem is often a challenge itself. At NRICH we find that students who get stuck often find it helpful to explore other students’ starting points then continue that solution, so we aim to feature student solutions to all of our problems on the website.
Check out these activities and accompanying teaching notes here.
‘Lowest common multiple’ and ‘highest common factor’ – two vital skills for pupils to ‘master’. The problem is, however, that LCM and HCF is one of those mixed muddles often referred to in Chief Examiners reports, thanks to students showing confusion between “factor” and “multiple”.
Being able to use both terms forms the basis of skills such as adding and subtracting fractions which, funnily enough, is also an area commonly answered badly in final assessments.
So why are these two terms so obtuse (again, no geometric pun intended)? Is it because they are two acronyms used together? Could a better approach be to keep them acres apart in a scheme of work? Is it because times tables knowledge is sadly lacking? Should we be encouraging copious amounts of fluency work so that they eventually ‘get it’?
In this article Julia Smith explores ways you can help pupils wrap their heads around this commonly confused area of the KS4 curriculum.
Check it out here.
This blog from Russell Timmins looks at Highest Common Factors (or Greatest Common Divisors) of two or more numbers, and states that there are two stages worthy of consideration when teaching HCF:
Check out this helpful article here.
Looking for great advice on supporting students with SEND?
Teachwire
By Nadav Avni
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, schools were forced to quickly adapt to distance...
By Nadav Avni When the coronavirus pandemic hit, schools were forced to quickly adapt to distance learning and blended learning environments. The results were mixed, to say the least. Teachers were using...
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, schools were forced to quickly adapt to distance learning and blended learning environments. The results were mixed, to say the least.
Teachers were using...
In this six-week series of art lessons, pupils will learn about Vincent Van Gogh and the Post-Impressionism movement. They will then copy the artist’s style to create their own picture of...
The team at Oxford University’s department of psychiatry have developed a guide specifically for school staff, to whom children may turn to ask questions or share their experiences or worries about...
Welcoming pupils back to school in the wake of coronavirus will entail a number of...
Boost primary pupils' fiction and non-fiction skills with these great descriptive writing examples, techniques, ideas,...
Emma Meadus pens a letter to the Newly Qualified Teachers of 2020 set to join...
There’s a good chance that you’re already linking curriculum learning to careers, says Liz Painter – so...
