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Mixed Attainment Maths Conference - January 2019

Mixed Attainment Maths Conference - January 2019
When NRICH started out, the resources were created for, and used mainly by, the highest achieving students.

Twenty five years on, our site has grown and changed, and our target audience is now teachers and students working at all levels. And yet we are still working to shake off the commonly held belief that NRICH is just for top set students...

For many years now, our aim has been, wherever possible, to publish "low threshold high ceiling" tasks that whole classes can work on together. With these tasks, everyone can get started, and everyone can get stuck!

Here are some resources which you might find useful:

Secondary Curriculum

Enriching the Secondary Curriculum

What we think and why we think it

Thinking Mathematically

Posters for the classroom.

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Below are some of our favourite "low threshold high ceiling" tasks for secondary students.

Poly Plug Rectangles
problem

Poly Plug Rectangles

Age
5 to 11
Challenge level
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The computer has made a rectangle and will tell you the number of spots it uses in total. Can you find out where the rectangle is?
Dozens
problem

Dozens

Age
7 to 14
Challenge level
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Can you select the missing digit(s) to find the largest multiple?
Reach 100
problem

Reach 100

Age
7 to 11
Challenge level
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Choose four different digits from 1-9 and put one in each box so that the resulting four two-digit numbers add to a total of 100.

Tilted Squares
problem

Tilted Squares

Age
11 to 14
Challenge level
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It's easy to work out the areas of most squares that we meet, but what if they were tilted?
Cyclic Quadrilaterals
problem

Cyclic Quadrilaterals

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Draw some quadrilaterals on a 9-point circle and work out the angles. Is there a theorem?
Shifting Times Tables
problem

Shifting Times Tables

Age
11 to 14
Challenge level
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Can you find a way to identify times tables after they have been shifted up or down?
Charlie's delightful machine
problem

Charlie's delightful machine

Age
11 to 16
Challenge level
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Here is a machine with four coloured lights. Can you develop a strategy to work out the rules controlling each light?
Odds, Evens and More Evens
problem

Odds, Evens and More Evens

Age
11 to 14
Challenge level
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Alison, Bernard and Charlie have been exploring sequences of odd and even numbers, which raise some intriguing questions...
Magic Letters
problem

Magic Letters

Age
11 to 14
Challenge level
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Charlie has made a Magic V. Can you use his example to make some more? And how about Magic Ls, Ns and Ws?
Polygon Rings
problem

Polygon Rings

Age
11 to 14
Challenge level
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Join pentagons together edge to edge. Will they form a ring?
Summing Consecutive Numbers
problem

Summing Consecutive Numbers

Age
11 to 14
Challenge level
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15 = 7 + 8 and 10 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4. Can you say which numbers can be expressed as the sum of two or more consecutive integers?
Unequal Averages
problem

Unequal Averages

Age
11 to 14
Challenge level
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Play around with sets of five numbers and see what you can discover about different types of average...
Pair Products
problem

Pair Products

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Choose four consecutive whole numbers. Multiply the first and last numbers together. Multiply the middle pair together. What do you notice?
Factorising with Multilink
problem

Factorising with Multilink

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Can you find out what is special about the dimensions of rectangles you can make with squares, sticks and units?
Steel Cables
problem

Steel Cables

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Some students have been working out the number of strands needed for different sizes of cable. Can you make sense of their solutions?
Hollow Squares
problem

Hollow Squares

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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Which armies can be arranged in hollow square fighting formations?
Odds and Evens made fair
problem

Odds and Evens made fair

Age
14 to 16
Challenge level
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In this follow-up to the problem Odds and Evens, we invite you to analyse a probability situation in order to find the general solution for a fair game.