New Users' Guide

The Framework for Teaching Mathematics: Years 7, 8 and 9 puts the various aspects of mathematical study suitable for our Key Stage 3 students into a cohesive and well-argued structure.

As far as teachers are concerned, the very substantial Supplement of Examples section is a most welcome 'fleshing out' of the bare bones of the 'syllabus', offering an excellent range of good ideas and best practice.

Most teachers develop their own stock of Things That Have Worked For Me, and intersperse their routine 'skills' teaching and exercise-based work with these 'nice' problems. These vary from short lesson-starters, through homeworks, to fairly substantial 'investigations'. The Supplement will be a key resource for adding to this stock.

What this 1000 Problems To Enjoy site has to offer is a further stock of 'nice' problems, arranged within the same structure, and linked to the Framework  by Page References and Key Words. They are usually short enough to write up on a board, or can be printed and photocopied for issue to students. All have fully worked Solutions in the accompanying Word Document.

What all these Problems share is that either the problem itself or the solution shows something of the beauty and unified structure of Mathematics.

For example:

If I were teaching a Year 9 class about 'proportional reasoning' (Yearly Teaching Programme Page 10), and wanting to move on to the effect of a change of scale on area and volume, I might be consulting the individual exemplars on Pages 79 and 81 (Supplement of Examples, Year 9) for a suitable introductory problem for my students to tackle for homework.

From the Problems To Enjoy site's front page, I would navigate to Number, then Year 9, then look for Page References to Pages 79 - 81, down the left hand column.

This suggests the problem Pendants, whose brief Description looks suitable for my purpose.

From the Problem Title, I hyperlink to the Problem statement itself, and check it for suitability for the class concerned.

I may be doubtful whether they will manage it unaided, and decide to Open The File As A Word Document from the link at the bottom of the page. This has full Hints, Notes and Solution, so I feel more confident about using, and maybe adapting, this for my class.

I happily print this document from where it is, or save it to my computer's hard drive for further personalization.

Now use the Menu bar to choose the area of Maths for which you want some Problems !