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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 is the lowest common multiple?

What is the lowest common multiple?
We explain what the lowest common multiple is and give examples of how the concept might be taught to your primary school child.

What is the lowest common multiple?

The lowest common multiple of two numbers is the smallest whole number which is a multiple of both. Teachers may introduce this concept to more able Year 6 children.
   

Quick reminder: a multiple is a number that can be divided by another number a certain number of times without a remainder.

How to find the lowest common multiple

The basic rule is to list the multiples of the larger number and stop when you get to a multiple of the smaller number. For example:

What is the lowest common multiple of 3 and 8?

Multiples of 3 are 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24...

Multiples of 8 are 8, 16, 24, 32, 40...

So the lowest common multiple of 3 and 8 is 24.

A more difficult challenge may be to ask for the lowest common multiple of a group of three or four numbers.

For example:

What is the lowest common multiple of 6, 15 and 20?

  • Start writing out the multiples like this:
    • Multiples of 6 are 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36
    • Multiples of 15 are 15, 30, 45, 60
    • Multiples of 20 are 20, 40, 60, 80
  • Both 6 and 15 have multiples of 30, however 20 cannot have  a multiple of 30. Both 15 and 20 have a multiple of 60. I know that 6 also has a multiple of 60, because 6 x 10 = 60. 
  • Because 60 is the only multiple all three numbers have in common, 60 is the lowest common multiple of the three numbers.