AVERAGES 2026

• New lesson editor
• Mathematics
• Upper Secondary (Key Stage 4)
• GCSE

AVERAGES AND RANGE

What we will learn today:

• What an average is 

• Everyday uses for averages

• How to work out a mean of a set of data

• How to work out a median of a set of data

• How to work out the mode of a set of data

• How to calculate a range and what it shows

What is an average?

An average is a representative or ‘typical’ value in a set of data.

The average person will take .............. steps a day

The average person falls asleep in .......... mins

The average adult laughs ........... times a day

From day 1 you are being measured against an average...

Length

Circumference of head

How old are you when you sit up/crawl/walk/talk

Weight

When do we use averages in everyday life?

3 Averages:

Mean

Median

Mode

Mean

Add up all the numbers and divide by how many numbers there are

Best used when:

There are no extreme values

The shoe sizes of 10 children in a school are: 5 4 6 5 7 5 2 8 6 12 What is the mean size?

A

7

B

5

C

8

D

6

The weekly costs of rent for 5 students are: £150, £180, £130, £190, £160 What is the mean rental cost?

A

£130

B

£155

C

£162

D

£175

Median

Put your numbers in order

Pick the middle number

If there are 2 numbers in the middle, add them and divide by 2

Best for:

When there are extreme values in your data

Attendance in your college class was the following over one week: 23, 28, 21, 19, 27 What was the median attendance?

A

28

B

23

C

21

D

19

Test scores for a student were: 40%, 30%, 80%, 60% What is the median score?

A

50%

B

80%

C

60%

D

40%

Mode

The mode is the number/item which occurs the most

A class was asked how many messages they think they send on their phone each day: 50, 65, 30, 80, 50, 20, 65, 50, 40 What is the mode?

A

30

B

30

C

50

D

65

The range is a measurement of how spread out data is.

Range  = Highest number - lowest number

Maths exam results for a class were: 66%, 85%, 75%, 90%, 40%, 70% What was the range?

A

50%

B

75%

C

90%

D

40%

Please complete this task with a partner!

Remember this:

Hey diddle diddle,

The median's the middle,

You add then divide for the mean.

The mode is the one you see the most,

and the range is the difference between.

I feel confident using averages and range