Mental skills are developed further in Year 5, including subtracting around the thousands boundary (e.g. 6,002 – 5,899) and subtracting multiples of 1,000.

The process of written subtraction should have been firmly established in Year 4. Children will build on this learning to subtract numbers with more than 4 digits and use their place value knowledge to line the numbers up accurately. Again, the most frequent problems occur when there is more than one exchange.

We have a great selection of pages for children to develop their skills, both mentally and using written methods. A favourite with the KS2 SAT testers is a calculation using the written method but with missing digits. This really shows whether children have understood the method.