Michelle Bottomley, year 6 teacher at Tetherdown Primary School in North London, presents her lesson on Algebra. The objectives being that her pupils use their knowledge of the properties of number in order to solve problems, and use a symbol to stand for an unknown number. The lesson starts with the class trying to work out what is happening in a function machine given several input and output numbers. In the main part of the lesson Michelle gets her pupils to look for patterns when working out how many squares are in different sized chessboards, and then to see if they could predict how many squares in a 25 x 25 squared board. Finally Michelle presents the formula that could be used for any sized board, which the pupils use to test some of their predictions. This programme is part of the KS2 Math Lesson Planning Pack on Algebra, which includes two lesson starters, one great lesson idea and a CPD discussion.

Video Series: Great Lesson Ideas
Release Date 2010