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Important update from TheSchoolRun

For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.

What this means for subscribers:

  • Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
  • In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
  • As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.

A few changes to be aware of:

  • The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
  • The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.

*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.

What are square numbers?

Square numbers
We explain what square numbers are and how children are taught to know square numbers plus the corresponding squares of multiples of 10. We also explain how knowledge of square numbers can help when it comes to working out the area of a square.

What are square numbers?

When you multiply a number by itself, the result is a square number:

1 x 1 = 1                           7 x 7 = 49
2 x 2 = 4                           8 x 8 = 64
3 x 3 = 9                           9 x 9 = 81
4 x 4 = 16                        10 x 10 = 100
5 x 5 = 25                        11 x 11 = 121
6 x 6 = 36                        12 x 12 = 144

and so on.

To write the mathematical formula for square numbers we add a small 2 next to and above the number, for example: 32.

Square numbers in Key Stage 2

Children in Years 5 and 6 are expected to know all the above square numbers, plus the corresponding squares of multiples of 10 (20 x 20 = 400, 30 x 30 = 900, 40 x 40 = 1600, etc.).

Knowledge of square numbers can help children when it comes to working out the area of a square. For example: they may be shown a square (not drawn to scale) and told the area of the square is 81cm². If they are asked to work out the length of each side, their knowledge of square numbers will mean they will know instantly that each side of the square is 9cm.
 

Children in Year 6 will need to solve puzzles and investigations involving square numbers. Here are some examples:

Karen has these number cards:

If she puts all the cards in a hat and picks one out at random, what is the probability she will pick a square number?

Answer: since there are 3 square numbers: 49, 100 and 16, the probability she will pick a square number is 3/8.

Another investigation example:

Two square numbers are added together to make another square number. What are they?

One possible answer is 16 + 9 which equals 25. 

Children in upper KS2 (but more usually KS3) will also learn about cube numbers.