Step 5 Objective

Know and use the order of operations including brackets.

Examples of what pupils should know and be able to do

Find mentally or use jottings to find the value of:

16 divided by 4 plus 8 equals 12, 16 plus 8 divided by 4 equals 18, 14 times 7 plus eight times 11 equals 186, 100 divided by (4 times 5) equals 5, 32 plus 13 times 5 equals 97, (3 squared plus 4 suared) squared equals 625, (5 squared minus 7) divided by (2 squared minus 1) equals 6

Probing questions

What clues do you look for when you are reading a calculation and deciding the order of operations?

What rules do you follow?

What if pupils find this a barrier?

The most common mistake is for pupils to read from left to right and to 'ignore' the order of operations.

Give pupils practice in 'reading' a calculation. Get pupils to talk through what a calculation is asking them to do.

Use a basic and scientific calculator and explore the different answers given to questions such as 2 + 4 × 3.

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