AVERAGES 2026

• 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?

1. 7
2. 5
3. 8
4. 6

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

1. £130
2. £155
3. £162
4. £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?

1. 28
2. 23
3. 21
4. 19

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

1. 50%
2. 80%
3. 60%
4. 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?

1. 30
2. 30
3. 50
4. 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?

1. 50%
2. 75%
3. 90%
4. 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

😒🙁😐🙂😃