Mathematics

Advanced

50 mins

Teacher/Student led

Learning Goals

Learning Outcomes

Lesson Files

+65 XP

What you need:
IWB/Projector/Large Screen

Order of Operations with Brackets

Learn the order of operations: brackets first, then multiply and divide, then add and subtract. Discover how brackets can change an answer and practise working left to right when operations have equal rank.

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1 Getting Started
2 Watch and Notice
3 Try It Together
4 Underline the Order in Your Copy
5 Class Challenge
Pupil practice

1 - Getting Started ~4 mins

Key point

Illustration for Getting Started Here is a quick puzzle. Look at this expression on the board: 4 + 6 × 2. Is the answer 20 or is it 16? Hands up if you think 20. Hands up if you think 16. Two people who both worked carefully can get two different answers here, and only one of them can be right. So who gets to decide which is correct?

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+5 XP

2 - Watch and Notice ~9 mins

The interactive works through three expressions, showing the right order beside the wrong one. Watch where each calculation starts — it isn't always the operation written first. Look out for what the brackets do.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+10 XP

3 - Try It Together ~11 mins

Today we work through 3 × (8 − 2) + 5 together on the interactive. Then we talk through 18 ÷ (1 + 2) × 4 and 50 − 6 × 3 + 4 on the board. Each one adds a new wrinkle.

How to tackle each one

In the first, the brackets come first, then the multiply, then the add. In the second, two same-rank operations sit together, so once the brackets are done we work left to right. In the third, there are no brackets at all, so we hunt for the multiply before we touch either the subtract or the add.

Whoever is at the board taps the glowing operation to collapse it; everyone else predicts out loud where each one lands before we check.

Work these out together

+15 XP

4 - Underline the Order in Your Copy ~3 mins

COPYBOOK MOMENT

In your maths copy, copy each of these expressions and work it out in stages. Underline the part you do first, then the next, then the last, and write the answer at the end of each line.

5 + 4 × 3
(5 + 4) × 3
24 ÷ 6 + 2
30 − 2 × (3 + 4)

+10 XP

5 - Class Challenge ~8 mins

Today's challenges get a little trickier each round. We work through 7 + 2 × 5, then (7 + 2) × 5, then 40 − 3 × (2 + 4), then 36 ÷ (12 − 9) + 5. Predict each answer, then press Check to confirm.

Before the last challenge we pause for a placement demo on the board (not on the interactive). The bare expression is 9 − 3 × 2 and the target is 12. Together we try each sensible place for the brackets, work out the value, and see which placement hits 12.

Then the final challenge: using that same method, agree as a class where the brackets go in 8 + 4 × 2 − 1 to reach 23, then check the matching expression on the board.

Order of operations challenge

+15 XP

Pupil practice

Module 2 · Operations and Computational Fluency Number

Lesson 23 · Order of Operations with Brackets

Download Activity Book page (PDF)

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