Give five seconds of quiet think-time before any hands go up. Take three hands-up answers, not open call-outs. Don't confirm right or wrong yet — the number line in the next step settles it. Listen for whether pupils are reasoning from position ("it's closer to 5") or just guessing.

4.7: candidates 4 and 5. Point to both ends first, then the marker. Ask which it's closer to. Past halfway (4.5), so rounds to 5. Establish the two-candidates idea here.

0.34: candidates 0.3 and 0.4, halfway 0.35. The round-down case. Deciding digit after tenths is 4, and 4 is less than 5, so stays at 0.3.

1.275: candidates 1.27 and 1.28. Marker sits exactly on halfway. The boundary case. Don't move on until they can say the rule back: lands on the halfway line, round up, so 1.28. This is the trap in the challenge.

This round is for talking it through together — pupils take turns at the board and the class agrees or corrects out loud. For each number, retype the board range so the line straddles the two candidates, then have a pupil name the two candidates and say the deciding digit that settled it.

Revoice a strong answer: 'so because the digit after the tenths was 8, and 8 is bigger than 5, we jumped up to 0.7.' If the class is quick, voice one more comparison aloud without re-ranging: 2.451 to the nearest hundredth holds at 2.45 because the deciding digit is 1.

Save 0.95 for last — it is the key one. Rounding 0.9-something up to the nearest tenth gives 1.0, which crosses into a whole number. Pause here and ask the class to predict before the reveal: 'what tenth is just above 0.9?' Watch for pupils who write 0.10 instead of 1.0.

These are the practice questions — pupils take turns at the board, check each answer, and the class confirms before moving on. Keep the board work brisk rather than over-explaining.

For each target, the pupil drags the marker to the rounded value and presses Check. The last one, 9.96 → 10.0, is the ceiling: rounding a 9.9-something up to the nearest tenth crosses into a new whole. Ask the class to predict where it lands before the pupil checks. Watch for pupils who try to write 9.10.