This football maths lesson plan for KS2 is the perfect opportunity to harness pupils’ enthusiasm for the game in order to challenge mathematical thinking...
With major sporting events come great opportunities to bring the rich world of statistics into the primary classroom.
Football provides vast amounts of data with which many children will already be familiar – top goal scorers, league tables, numbers of passes, red cards.
They’ll have seen them on Match of the Day and football cards – you might even have a few resident experts who can reel off all the figures for their favourite players.
Football maths lesson
What they’ll learn:
- Access relevant data on the internet
- Analyse real football statistics
- Find and use mean averages
- Find and use percentages of amounts
- Use data to inform predictions and opinions
Starter activity
Begin the lesson by making reference to the previous day’s games, as well as imminent matches. Discuss who the children think will win the forthcoming games, and who they want to win.
Explain how statistics from sports matches can help us to make predictions about future outcomes. Either provide the children with paper copies of some statistics or have them explore the FIFA website. Ask basic retrieval questions to familiarise the children with how to read and interpret the tables and charts.
Aidan Severs is an assistant vice principal at a primary school in Bradford where he leads maths and Lower KS2. He is also primary lead practitioner for a MAT. Follow him on Twitter at @AidanSevers.
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