Find the original amount after a percentage increase or decrease, using two bars to see what 100% stands for. 16 questions, full answers included.

Worksheet (1 page): each of the first questions shows two bars, the original as 100% and the amount now as more or less than that. Students write the percentage it is now, divide to find 1%, then multiply by 100 to get back to the original. The prompts fade over the next questions, and the last two (a club’s membership and a hedge that has been cut back) are worked without support.

Further practice (1 page): graded by difficulty, with a 2.5% increase, choosing the right calculation from 68 × 0.85, 68 ÷ 0.85, 68 × 1.15 and 68 ÷ 1.15, and contexts such as a laptop, a puppy’s mass, a jacket in a sale and comparing a coat’s price in two shops. It finishes with the common mistake of adding 20% of the sale price back on.

Answers to all 16 questions are included as a separate file.

Suitable for GCSE Foundation (AQA R9) and for Key Stage 3 classes working on percentages.

AI was used to help create this resource, working from my own lesson design.