Our latest set of mental arithmetic questions for Year 6. This week we concentrate on keeping those addition and subtraction skills up to scratch. Children who are quick and successful with mental arithmetic have many different strategies at their fingertips. Which strategy they use will depend on a quick assessment of the numbers involved. As an example these two questions look very similar but a child with good mental arithmetic skills may well approach them as below: 2.6 - 0.9 can be done by subtracting 1 making 1.6 and then adjusting by 0.1 to make 1.7 1.7 - 0.9 can be done by adding on 0.1 from 0.9 to o1 and then adding the 0.7 making 0.8. It is this ability to instantly assess the question to see what the best approach is that makes all the difference. There is no one right way to go about these questions but it is only a good method if it is accurate and quick!