Hello. My name is Nathan and I am a subject leader for maths in year 13. As a part of flair week, I presented a year 7 maths class with a puzzle for them to complete as their starter activity to try and challenge their brains. I started by introducing and recapping the rules of BIDMAS, an acronym used to tell you the correct order to complete a calculation when there are different operations. After which I then introduced them to this new symbol, ‘!’, which in maths means factorial – meaning the product of an integer and all the numbers before. For example, 4! = 1 x 2 x 3 x 4. Now they had all the tools they needed to complete the puzzle and in the end, they were successful.

Down below is the puzzle if anyone would like to attempt it. The rules are you have to make all 9 equations equal to 6 by adding different symbols and functions in between each number. The allowed functions are: +, -, /, x, !, (brackets), square and cubed roots. Some are easier than others and some have more than one way of getting to the answer, so there could be multiple possibilities. Good luck.’