Course: Maths Subject Knowledge: Understanding Numbers

Take a square number, say 36 and use your calculator to find the square root of 36. Most calculators will give the answer as 6. If we square root any …

Below we look at each of the BIDMAS rules in turn. Brackets The convention states that any calculations which are in brackets are performed first. It is important to note …

A brief look through any newspaper headlines and you will soon encounter something such as this: “Cash-strapped entrepreneur, 33, launched a greeting cards company with just £30 in the bank …

Division is the inverse operation of multiplication. If \(3 \times 2 = 6\), then \(6 \div 3 = 2\) and \(6 \div 2 = 3\). If \(3 \times ({-2}) = …

Why do we all stop at a red light and go at a green light? Traffic lights would work just as well if everyone stopped on a green light and …

We have seen how double sided counters are useful to develop an understanding of adding two numbers where at least one of the numbers is negative. In the last step …

Multiplying by a negative numbers has applications when students study transformations, use vectors and perform enlargements and stretches. Students first meet the concept of multiplication as repeated addition. \(3 \times …

Whilst a number line can be very useful to help students understand what is happening when adding numbers some students find the concept of adding a negative numbers confusing especially …

It is likely that ‘subtract’ is first met as the concept of ‘take away’. If you have ten sweets and I take away four sweets how many sweets have you …

Students will be familiar with working on a number line and will be able to represent positive and negative numbers as positions on a number line. Adding numbers is often …

Welcome to week three. Last week we considered how different number systems work, found multiples and factors and prime numbers. We also explored two different methods of finding the highest …

We started the course by looking at the counting numbers. With the inclusion of zero, the counting numbers are known as the Natural Numbers. With the advent of money and …

In an earlier step, we saw how the highest common factor of two numbers and the lowest common multiple of two numbers can be found by listing the factors or …

During week two we gained a deeper understanding of how the base ten number system works. Young students are required to learn their times tables. We have seen how study …

In the previous step we learnt that the definition of a prime number is a positive integer which has exactly two distinct factors. These two factors will always be the …