Number bonds are one of those things that seem to produce unusual passion and concern in young mathematicians and their parents.
The name's Bond, Number Bond (Image:Wikipedia)
Parents and students often ask us if we do number bonds, at Maths-Whizz, as though they are mathematical methods exclusive to the initiated few. Nothing could be further from the truth.
An object lesson in the hidden uses of numeracy – preventing minor miscarriages of justice!
As Halfway There notes, in 2008 a judge in Portugal increased a plaintiff’s punishment, when he intended to decrease it, thanks to some awful maths.
…ome hapless guy got slammed with a “penhora,” which translates into English as “distrainment”—the seizure of personal property to enforce the payment or discharge of an obligation. In this particular case, the subject of the distrainment had suffered the seizure of 1/6 of his assets. He petitioned the court for relief, claiming that he was suffering grave economic hardship.
The court solemnly pondered the petitioner’s request, noting the necessity of proportionately balancing the petitioner’s well-being against his responsibility to discharge his legal obligations. Upon consideration, the court ruled that the distrainment of 1/6 of the petitioner’s assets had been too severe and ordered a relaxation of the order. The new order instead stipulated a seizure of 1/5 of his assets.
This would be hilarious, if it wasn’t somewhat less than funny for the recipient of the Judge’s generosity.
But it goes to show that maths is necessary for all sorts of careers, not least those in the distinguished legal profession…
Money makes the maths go down...
Money can make the maths go down, to coin a phrase.
Since Britain’s currency was decimalised many of us have had their first introductions to base ten maths and decimal concepts in money.
Most children are likely to have got a basic grasp of the notion of pennies and pounds, and how they relate, from an early age. And children are likely to have understood this long before they are required by national curricula to have understood tenths, hundredths, performing operations on decimal numbers, and the like.
If nothing else, this proves that if there is a need and a daily context in which to learn, we can acquire complex skills without really realising. But it also gives us a useful tool when tackling calculating with decimal places.
Take the question “3.6 divided by 12″.
It sounds pretty tough to the unconfident. After all, 12 is larger than 3.6, which means the answer will be smaller than one, a decimal value.
Now take the question “£3.60 split amongst twelve people”.
Does the question seem easier? Suddenly it’s about a dozen students going Dutch on an order of poppadoms (substitute scenario as appropriate!).
As soon as we add a pound sign in front of a decimal value in a calculation, it can seem easier to visualise, to handle.
0.01 is one hundredth, an abstract concept. Whereas £0.01 is a penny – it’s solid, and there’s a hundred of them in a pound – easy!
If you struggle with decimal calculations, it might just help to shove a pound sign in front of the numbers, turn 0.4 into £0.40 or 40p, etc. One of the commonest pitfalls of multiplying or dividing with decimals is the failure to show the answer in the right order of magnitude.
For instance, taking 3.6/12, we could make the question easier by writing it 36/12 – the answer is 3. But now what do we do to find the answer to 3.6/12? This can stump people, but using the context of money means that we know £3.6 is 36 10p coins, or 360 pennies.
If the answer to 36/12 is 3, that means three 10p coins, or 30p! And how do we write 30p in pounds? £0.30. Easy! We’ve just converted the whole-number answer to our simplified calculation back into the final decimal answer.
This Maths-Whizz tip comes courtesy of Hilary Koll and Steve Mills, the esteemed and award-winning maths boffins who designed all our Maths-Whizz lesson concepts, people to whom even the God of Whizz tugs his forelock.
The long summer holidays will soon be upon us. But those endless warm afternoons of childhood may conceal a hidden menace – ’summer learning loss’.
Policy wonks have found that summer learning loss, an established side-effect of long school holidays, is particularly pronounced in some groups:
…children from the poorest backgrounds suffered most with ’summer learning loss’ because they were the least likely to practise reading and writing during the six-week break.
The Education Guardian has reported on plans from think-tank The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) to shorten the long summer holidays. This should interest parents from any wealth bracket – without the right attention even the most expensively educated can suffer.
