Mastering Percentages of Amounts
A comprehensive lesson for Year 6 students to master calculating percentages of amounts. The lesson moves from basic unit fractions (10%, 50%) to composite percentages (35%, 17%) using a 'building block' approach suitable for SATs preparation.
Learning objectives
- Recall and use equivalences between simple fractions and percentages.
- Calculate 10%, 25%, and 50% of a given amount using division.
- Calculate any percentage of an amount by combining 10%, 5%, and 1% building blocks.
- Solve real-life problems involving percentage discounts and increases.
Lesson plan (60 minutes)
Introduction · 10 min
Mental starter: Rapid recall of fraction/decimal/percentage equivalents (e.g., 50% = 1/2).
Teaching · 15 min
Direct instruction using the 'Divide by 10/100' method. Modelling 10%, 5%, and 1% as building blocks.
Guided Practice · 5 min
Guided practice: Solving 35% of 200 together on mini-whiteboards.
Independent Practice · 20 min
Independent practice: Differentiated worksheets (Support, Core, Stretch).
Review and Assessment · 10 min
Plenary: Multiple-choice quiz to check for misconceptions.
Key vocabulary
- Amount
- The total or whole value (100%).
- Percent
- Parts per hundred.
- Equivalent
- A value that is the same as another (e.g., 50% is equivalent to 0.5).
- Divide
- To split into equal parts.
- Tenth
- One of ten equal parts (10%).
Core worksheet (first questions)
- Calculate 13% of 400.
- Calculate 80% of 160.
- Find 35% of 70.
- A shirt costs £120. It is increased by 13% in a sale. What is the value of the increase?
Quiz (sample)
1. What is 10% of 500?
- A. 25
- B. 50
- C. 100
- D. 200
2. What is 50% of 90?
- A. 90
- B. 4.5
- C. 45
- D. 50
3. What is 20% of 300?
- A. 300
- B. 30
- C. 600
- D. 60
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Support and Stretch worksheets, every answer and model answer, the teaching explainer and common misconceptions, editable and ready to print as PDF or Word.
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