Tag: percentage

It’s always nice to have something topical to use as part of the maths curriculum. Today I would like to point you to a page on percentages, linked to the theme of bonfire night, or fireworks, suitable for Year 6 children who are learning about how to work out percentages.

Four different kinds of fireworks are on sale, with 20% off. The questions involve working out how much the boxes cost and how much in the way of savings can be made.

Finding 20% is relatively straightforward if done in two parts:

first find 10% by dividing by 2

find 20% by doubling the answer.

You can find this page in my Year 6, Understanding Number section.

Thanks to urbrainy.com for letting me publish this page. There are more bonfire night pages on their site, which you can trial free of charge at urbrainy.com

Bonfire night percentages

Here is the second of our percentages worksheets for Year 5. It is typical of the English that we manage to write per cent in two different ways. Unlike the Americans who use percent we use two words per cent, apart from when we write percentage when we put it altogether.

Anyway, as to the maths: remember that many percentages can be worked out ‘in your head’ by remembering that 10% of an amount is equivalent to dividing the amount by 10. At this stage we will only be dealing with whole tens so it is probably the best approach. Later more complicated percentages will be found by dividing by 100 and multiplying by the percentage.

To find 20% of £350.

Find 10% of £350, which  is £35

If 10% is £35, then 20% will be £35 x 2 = £70.

Percentages (pg 2)