Seasons

Three points in the year when an ordinary worksheet will not do, each with something to actually run rather than a themed border round the same sums.

• The 100th Day of School

  Somewhere in late January a hundred school days have gone by, and every class in the country counts to a hundred at once. It is the best counting lesson of the year because the number finally means something — a hundred is however far you have come.

• Halloween maths

  The one week of the year when children voluntarily do large-number arithmetic, because it is their sweets and they want to know exactly how many. Use it.

• Winter maths

  The end of term, when nobody wants a worksheet and everybody still needs the practice. Symmetry is the one topic that survives a classroom that has stopped concentrating, because it looks like art and is entirely geometry.