Plane Bearings

Plane Bearings

A visual aid designed to help pupils estimate three figure bearings.

The intention is for the teacher to project this animated visual aid during a whole class plenary session. The objective is to improve pupils' ability to estimate three figure compass bearings.

This could be made into a game. The teacher clicks on the button changing the direction the plane is facing. Everyone makes an estimate of the bearing and writes down their answer on a Mini Whiteboard (or in the back of their exercise book).

The teacher than makes an estimate of the bearing and whoever's estimate is closer to the actual bearing than the teacher's wins a point. The first person to get ten points is the winner.

If more practice is needed the winner could take over the teacher's role in the game.

When everyone feels confident estimating bearings try the Starter activity called Air Traffic Control.

You can find related activities on the Bearings topic page.

More Shine+Write projectables.

Note for teacher:

Each time this page is loaded the first four bearings are always 45, 180, 270 and 300. After that the bearings are randomly generated.

For the first 12 bearings the plane is centred at the crossing point of the compass direction lines. After that the plane is centred at a randomly generated position.