A starter on mental addition and subtraction for Year 5 maths. Pupils jump in steps of place value with questions like 45,230 + 3,000, use compensation tricks for near numbers such as 34,500 + 1,999, then explain in words how they would work out 15,200 + 3,998. Worked solutions for all seven questions fill the answer key. Covers the England National Curriculum objective on mental calculation with larger numbers.
Number - addition and subtraction
“Add and subtract numbers mentally with increasingly large numbers”
The three parts move from single-jump questions to explaining a full mental strategy.
Fill-in-the-blank questions adding or subtracting a single place value, like 87,495 - 400.
Compensation questions such as 68,250 - 998, solved without column methods.
Pupils write out the steps of their mental strategy for 15,200 + 3,998.
Worked solutions for all seven questions.
Lesson starter
Use Parts 1 and 2 as a ten-minute warm-up before written methods.
Maths talk
Share answers to Part 3 aloud and compare different mental routes.
Intervention
The compensation questions suit pupils who default to column methods for everything.
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