Understanding the relationship between fractions, decimals and percentages is an important part of work in Year 5. It might seem quite tricky, but the key to understanding can be shown as:

If one whole one is split into ten equal parts then:

• each part is 0.1 of the whole one
• each part is also 10% of the whole one.

This means that 0.1 equals 10%.

If one whole one is split into 100 equal parts then:

• each part is 0.01 of the whole one
• each part is also 1% of the whole one.

This means that 0.01 is equal to 1%.

Once this is understood other decimals can be converted to percentages quite easily.

e.g. 0.4 = 40% and 0.04 = 4%

Our latest pages take a close look at the relationship between percentages and decimals. Well worth a look.