Calculating percentages
How do you calculate a percentage of a number?
Calculating a percentage of a number is a useful skill that children learn in school, and it's something parents can help reinforce at home.
Here's a simple explanation:
Understand the concept
Explain to your child that a percentage is a way of expressing a part of a whole as a fraction of 100. For example, if something is 25%, it means it represents 25 out of 100 parts of the whole.
Convert percentage to decimal
Help your child understand that to calculate a percentage of a number, you first convert the percentage to a decimal. They can do this by dividing the percentage by 100. For example, 25% becomes 0.25 (25 ÷ 100 = 0.25).
Multiply
Once the percentage is converted to a decimal, explain that they then multiply that decimal by the whole number they want to find the percentage of. For example, if they want to find 25% of 80, they multiply 0.25 (the decimal form of 25%) by 80.
0.25 × 80=20
Understand the result
Help your child understand that the result of the multiplication is the percentage of the whole number they were looking for.
So, 25% of 80 is 20.
How will this calculating percentages worksheet help your KS2 child?
This teacher-created activity was designed to help your child practise calculating percentages of different prices. This will consolidate what they're learning at school and build their confidence.
For more support with primary-school maths, check out our hub page, or try a new challenge such as our Finding percentages of quantities worksheet.
