Maths topic
Number properties
What children learn in number properties, from their first year of school to the end of primary, and the lessons to watch together.
What's taught, year by year
The steps in number properties, in the order children usually meet them. Years are named as in Australia; the ages are a guide.
Year 2 ages 7–8
- Odd and even with pairs. Pair up objects to see whether a number is odd (one left over) or even.
- Odd and even numbers from the ones digit. Tell whether any number is odd or even by looking at its last digit.
Year 3 ages 8–9
- Use properties of operations. Use turnaround, regrouping, adding zero and multiplying by one to simplify sums.
Year 4 ages 9–10
- Odd and even rules for adding and multiplying. Predict whether a sum, difference or product will be odd or even.
- Multiples of a number. List multiples and recognise whether a number is a multiple of 2, 3, 5 or 10.
- Factors and factor pairs. Find all the factor pairs of a whole number up to 100 using arrays.
Year 5 ages 10–11
- Prime and composite numbers. Sort numbers by how many factors they have and recall primes up to 20.
- Common factors and common multiples. Find factors or multiples that two numbers share.
- Divisibility tests. Use quick tests to check whether a number divides by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 or 10.
- Square numbers. Build squares from dots or tiles and write 4 squared as 4² = 16.
- Cube numbers. Build cubes from blocks and write 3 cubed as 3³ = 27.
- Order of operations without brackets. Multiply and divide before adding and subtracting in a mixed calculation.
Year 6 ages 11–12
- Order of operations with brackets. Work out calculations with brackets first, then the other operations.
- Prime factors and factor trees. Break a number into prime factors using a factor tree.
- Highest common factor and lowest common multiple. Find the HCF and LCM of two numbers and use them to solve problems.
- Powers and index notation. Write repeated multiplication with an exponent, including powers of 10.