Ready, Steady, Practice! at
Thatcham Park Primary School
Mrs Sheen’s Year 5 lesson for multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000 using the Ready, Steady, Practise! Mental Arithmetic pupil books.
Differentiation
After Mrs Sheen models the concept on the place value grid, the children return to their desks and - depending on how confident they feel - pick which activity they’d like to try from the differentiated exercises in Ready, Steady, Practise!
“As a school we try to encourage the children to choose their own activity – this stretches them, as if they feel confident they can go for a more difficult exercise.”
Using the books
The children work on their exercises, comparing with their neighbours and getting help from Mrs Sheen or her Teaching Assistant. They then choose a new harder or easier exercise depending on how they’re getting along.
“It makes it easier to have ready to use exercises for the lessons. We often use the books in intervention groups too. They’re easy to work from and the children seem to really enjoy using them.”
Self-evaluation
Mrs Sheen puts the answers at the front of the class so the children can mark their own work. The children huddle around and compare marks, then write down how they feel about the exercise.
Try the exercises • Learn more about Ready, Steady, Practise!
