Maths for secondary schools

Published 04/08/2026.  Last updated 04/09/2026

This resource is shared as part of Maths Week Scotland. The theme for 2026 is Maths Matters.

These activities provide ideas for learning in secondary schools. Activities can be adapted for Broad General Education (BGE) and the senior phase. They can be used all year round to support children and young people to develop mathematics through learning that is relevant to their everyday lives.

Each activity provides opportunities for learners to apply numeracy skills and mathematical thinking in meaningful contexts.

iCould careers is a collection of short career videos from people in a range of STEM industries, describing their work.

Learners can then research careers they are interested in using My World of Work job profiles.

The e-sgoil Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) video archive can be filtered to find videos of past Maths Week events.

Making the UK's First Solar Electric Fishing Boat

Making the UK's First Solar Electric Fishing Boat describes the importance of maths to fishing and boat building.

Learners can make connections to other areas of learning such as:

  • energy sources and sustainability
  • sciences, and technological developments in society
  • business technologies

Evaluating Risk from Motivate Maths explores the statistics behind the headlines.

This series of videos and worksheets uses straightforward numerical approaches to work out what statistics really say.

Balancing risk and reward

Real world scenarios aren’t simple. Discuss these scenarios about risk, probability and reward.

This resource provides 10 deceptively simple, and often misleading scenarios to discuss.

These could be used as lesson starters or for more lengthy discussion.

This collection of Fermi problems asks deceptively tough questions that provide great opportunities for discussion and creative, mathematical thinking.

Although the same question could be asked to learners at almost any stage, the expected level of sophistication in solutions will differ.

Although this guide is Australian, examples can be adapted to more local contexts.

Industrial Light and Magic is a video from Maths week Scotland 2025. It looks at how special effects specialists use maths to bring movies to life.

Learners can make connections to the Film and Screen Curriculum.

They can also explore technological developments in society and business by considering the contribution technological advances have made to creative industries.

In the mathematics of navigation learners can investigate the history of navigation, particularly at sea and compare this to modern day approaches.

The history of measuring longitude

How We Solved the Greatest Riddle In Navigation explores the history of modern navigation.

Global Positioning System (GPS)

How GPS Works from BBC Earth Science explores the science behind GPS mapping technology.

This clip is taken from the BBC series The Secret Genius of Modern Life.

Plan for National Numeracy Day 2026.

The National Numeracy Day summer fete lesson is suitable for ages 11 to 14. It focuses on percentages of amounts, profit and loss calculations, proportional reasoning and financial decision-making.

Download the lesson plan and lesson slides.

Hi-Low Predictions involves making decisions based on chance. 

Play some of these games to encourage learners to develop and explain their winning strategies.

Issue to action maths activities is a teaching toolkit for Learning for Sustainability.

Climate change

Cows or cars looks at making calculations to inform lifestyle choices which affect personal carbon footprints. It is a standalone lesson which could link number and data learning to wider learning for sustainability and global citizenship. 

Gender Equality

Women in Parliament engages with real world data to discover gender patterns in primary education across the world. 

A series of 3 short activities which look at making sense of large numbers, identifying trends in data, and understanding proportions. 

Data and statistics

Important stuff most people get wrong from Gapminder asks questions about population to address misconceptions about the world’s current population, and how it is changing. 

Use as a class activity to promote discussion and develop the idea of challenging misconceptions using data. 

Individual questions can be used as a series of starter activities. 

Data visualisation

The world region ranking tool uses animated data to help us understand our changing world. It shows how countries have changed in their population, education, and even happiness score.

Explore a range of graphs either as a class, in small groups, or individually. 

Ask learners:

  • What do they notice? 
  • What do they wonder?

Learners could explore any of the 5 other tools and try to make connections to historical world events which have had a dramatic effect on the data. 
^ Back to top

Maths for secondary schools

Published 04/08/2026.  Last updated 04/09/2026

This resource is shared as part of Maths Week Scotland. The theme for 2026 is Maths Matters.

These activities provide ideas for learning in secondary schools. Activities can be adapted for Broad General Education (BGE) and the senior phase. They can be used all year round to support children and young people to develop mathematics through learning that is relevant to their everyday lives.

Each activity provides opportunities for learners to apply numeracy skills and mathematical thinking in meaningful contexts.

iCould careers is a collection of short career videos from people in a range of STEM industries, describing their work.

Learners can then research careers they are interested in using My World of Work job profiles.

The e-sgoil Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) video archive can be filtered to find videos of past Maths Week events.

Making the UK's First Solar Electric Fishing Boat

Making the UK's First Solar Electric Fishing Boat describes the importance of maths to fishing and boat building.

Learners can make connections to other areas of learning such as:

  • energy sources and sustainability
  • sciences, and technological developments in society
  • business technologies

Evaluating Risk from Motivate Maths explores the statistics behind the headlines.

This series of videos and worksheets uses straightforward numerical approaches to work out what statistics really say.

Balancing risk and reward

Real world scenarios aren’t simple. Discuss these scenarios about risk, probability and reward.

This resource provides 10 deceptively simple, and often misleading scenarios to discuss.

These could be used as lesson starters or for more lengthy discussion.

This collection of Fermi problems asks deceptively tough questions that provide great opportunities for discussion and creative, mathematical thinking.

Although the same question could be asked to learners at almost any stage, the expected level of sophistication in solutions will differ.

Although this guide is Australian, examples can be adapted to more local contexts.

Industrial Light and Magic is a video from Maths week Scotland 2025. It looks at how special effects specialists use maths to bring movies to life.

Learners can make connections to the Film and Screen Curriculum.

They can also explore technological developments in society and business by considering the contribution technological advances have made to creative industries.

In the mathematics of navigation learners can investigate the history of navigation, particularly at sea and compare this to modern day approaches.

The history of measuring longitude

How We Solved the Greatest Riddle In Navigation explores the history of modern navigation.

Global Positioning System (GPS)

How GPS Works from BBC Earth Science explores the science behind GPS mapping technology.

This clip is taken from the BBC series The Secret Genius of Modern Life.

Plan for National Numeracy Day 2026.

The National Numeracy Day summer fete lesson is suitable for ages 11 to 14. It focuses on percentages of amounts, profit and loss calculations, proportional reasoning and financial decision-making.

Download the lesson plan and lesson slides.

Hi-Low Predictions involves making decisions based on chance. 

Play some of these games to encourage learners to develop and explain their winning strategies.

Issue to action maths activities is a teaching toolkit for Learning for Sustainability.

Climate change

Cows or cars looks at making calculations to inform lifestyle choices which affect personal carbon footprints. It is a standalone lesson which could link number and data learning to wider learning for sustainability and global citizenship. 

Gender Equality

Women in Parliament engages with real world data to discover gender patterns in primary education across the world. 

A series of 3 short activities which look at making sense of large numbers, identifying trends in data, and understanding proportions. 

Data and statistics

Important stuff most people get wrong from Gapminder asks questions about population to address misconceptions about the world’s current population, and how it is changing. 

Use as a class activity to promote discussion and develop the idea of challenging misconceptions using data. 

Individual questions can be used as a series of starter activities. 

Data visualisation

The world region ranking tool uses animated data to help us understand our changing world. It shows how countries have changed in their population, education, and even happiness score.

Explore a range of graphs either as a class, in small groups, or individually. 

Ask learners:

  • What do they notice? 
  • What do they wonder?

Learners could explore any of the 5 other tools and try to make connections to historical world events which have had a dramatic effect on the data. 
^ Back to top