Lesson video

Hi, I'm Mrs. Wheelhouse and welcome to today's lesson, which is from the unit Maths in the Workplace.

In this series of lessons we're exploring how maths is used in different careers.

Let's get started.

By the end of today's lesson, you'll have seen some of the ways that maths is used by personal assistants.

Now one of the words we may be using today is percentage.

Now just a quick reminder of what a percentage is.

So if you need to, feel free to pause and just have a look through or refresh your memory of what percentages are.

Our lesson's broken into two parts today.

We're gonna begin by looking at time.

Now, what other areas of maths do you think a personal assistant might use? Feel free to pause the video now while you discuss.

What did you come up with? Well, I've said time obviously, but what about those other areas? Well, within time we might be organising meetings, so you might have said that.

Booking travel, coordinating plans, but other areas could be spreadsheets.

Finance, such as booking accommodation, using discounts, that's where our percentages comes in, or budgets.

Now during the lesson we're gonna look at some of these.

Now a personal assistant or PA is organising attendance at a conference.

The conference starts at 9:00 AM.

Now, if they need to leave home before 6:30 AM they can spend the night before at a hotel, close to the conference venue.

Using the following information on the next slide, decide if they need a hotel room for the night before.

So what we've got here is part of a train timetable.

The time taken to drive to station A is 35 minutes and the conference is close to station H.

The time taken to walk from station H to the venue is six minutes.

Will the PA need to book a hotel for the night before the conference? So what I want you to do is just pause the video quickly and see if you can work this out.

Welcome back.

Let's go through this and see how you got on.

Did you say yes? Well done if you did.

To get to the venue for 9:00 AM the PA will need to catch the 6:58 train from station A.

Therefore, they need to leave home at 6:23, which is before 6:30.

Let's check you've got that.

The PA needs to let a client know the earliest time a meeting can start.

They need to travel from station B to station E.

It will take 20 minutes to get from station E to the venue of the meeting.

So what is the earliest time the meeting can start? Pause the video now while you work this out.

Welcome back.

What time did you put? Well, let's just check that you follow through the same reasoning I did.

The first train, the 7:15, doesn't actually stop at station E, so we can't catch that train.

Well the second train, did you notice it doesn't stop at station B at all? So otherwise, the first train that can be caught is the 8:55 from station B, and that gets to station E at 9:40.

Because it's 20 minutes to get from station E to the venue, the earliest time the meeting can start is 10:00 AM, although personally I might set that a little bit later because what happens if it doesn't take exactly 20 minutes? Might wanna build myself in a little bit of slack.

Now the PA of a director is organising a morning of interviews for a new position at the company.

Each candidate needs to do the following: There's a 15 minute welcome; there's a tour of the company, which can be done in a group or independently, and takes 45 minutes; there's an interview, individually with the director, and that takes 60 minutes; there's a timed task which can be split into two parts and in total takes 1 hour and 30 minutes; and there's a break of 15 minutes.

There are three candidates.

So, the PA decides to use a spreadsheet because that makes rearranging the events much easier.

They use coloured blocks to make it easy to see if events overlap.

They should start with the interview because these need to be carried out individually and they are carried out by the same person, the director, so they can't possibly overlap.

Hmm.

Can the interviews occur at these times? What do you think? Well done if you said no because we have an overlap.

A and B's interviews were happening at the same time.

That's not workable.

Let's split this out.

Does this look better? Yes, because now the interviews are not overlapping.

However, the PA now finds a note on their desk.

The note looks like this.

"Please make sure I have a 30 minute break at some point between the interviews, but not before 10:30." And now what change now needs to be made to the schedule? What about if I do this? Is this okay? Yes, because the interviews do not overlap and there is a break for the director from 11:15 to 11:45.

Now we're going to schedule the tour.

Because the task can be broken into two parts I have a bit more flexibility with that.

I'm going to schedule the tour like this: B and C can have their tour at the same time, but A will have to have theirs separately.

I'm now going to schedule the breaks of 15 minutes each.

Well putting them there looks perfect, gives me lots of free time and I used up that spare 15 minutes that A had.

And now I'm going to schedule the task.

There we go.

The director would like a 15 minute get together with all the candidates at the end of the morning.

So what time will the interview morning actually finish? That's right, it finishes at 1:00 PM.

Let's check you've got that.

The director decides that they would like each candidate to take the tour on their own rather than with another candidate, and all candidates need to have a break before 10:30.

Rewrite the schedule to take this into account.

Remember, the task can be split into two parts.

Pause the video while you have a go at this now.

Welcome back.

Now I'm just gonna give an example of how you could have done this.

I've done it as follows: Now everybody is doing their tour separately and I had to break the task into two parts for candidate B.

Well done if you did something similar.

It's now time for your first task.

Question one.

The PA needs to let a client know the earliest time a meeting can start.

They need to travel from station C to station G.

It will take 20 minutes to get from station G to the venue of the meeting.

What is the earliest time the meeting can start? Pause the video while you work on this now.

Welcome back.

Question two.

You are a PA and are organising a morning of interviews.

You may use the spreadsheet on the next slide to help you.

Each candidate needs to do the following: A 15 minute welcome; a tour of the company in pairs, which takes 30 minutes; an interview individually with the director, which takes 45 minutes; a timed task which can be split into multiple parts and takes 60 minutes; a paired task, which takes 45 minutes; a break of 15 minutes with one other candidate, no earlier than 10:30; and the director wants a 15 minute break after two interviews have taken place.

There are four candidates.

Here's a template of a spreadsheet that you might find useful for this task.

Pause the video while you work on this now.

Welcome back.

Let's go through these.

Question one.

The PA needs to let a client know the earliest time the meeting can start and I asked you, well what is that earliest time? Remember, we're going from station C to station G.

Well the first train doesn't stop at station C and the second train doesn't stop at station G.

So they'll need to catch the 9:13 from station C, which gets to station G at 10:10.

Therefore the earliest time the meeting can start is 10:30 in the morning.

Well done if you said that.

Question two.

I asked you to arrange a morning of interviews.

Now here's an example.

You may have something different, but you should have noticed that you can get it all to fit.

If you like, feel free to pause now so that you can compare what I've done to what you have in front of you.

It's now time for the second part of our lesson.

And now we're going to look at finance.

A personal assistant needs to book accommodation for a two night stay.

Which hotel should they choose? So we've got a lot of options here.

So what I'd like you to do is just read through the information for each hotel and then, gut instinct now, which one at the moment, so with no calculations, which one do you think is going to be the best choice? Pause the video and make your decision now.

Welcome back.

Let's go through now and do some maths to prove which one is best.

So for Kip Here, remember I'm staying for two nights, that's simply 87 times two, which is 174 pounds.

For Get Your Head Down, that's 98 pounds per night, but, there's a 10% discount if we stay more than one night so therefore our total cost is found by calculating 98 times two.

And then we want to find 90% of that amount because we have a 10% discount.

This gives us a total of 176 pounds and 40 pence.

And then for A Stay Away, it's 91 pounds per night, but you get a 10% discount on your second night.

In other words, total cost is 91 pounds plus 90% of 91 pounds 'cause that second night, remember, has that reduction.

This gives us a total of 172 pounds and 90 pence.

And therefore we can see A Stay Away is the cheapest hotel.

It's time now for a quick check.

A personal assistant needs to book accommodation for a three night stay.

Which hotel should they choose? Pause the video while you work this out now.

Welcome back.

Let's check your working and what answer you put.

So for the first hotel, you should have had a cost of 270 pounds.

For the second hotel, 264 pounds and 60 pence.

And then for the third hotel, 272 pounds and 25 pence.

Did you spot that 15% discount on your third night? It didn't matter though.

That final hotel was still the most expensive.

We wanna pick hotel number two, Get Your Head Down, because that was the cheapest cost.

Well done if you worked this out.

An employee needs to travel from London to attend a meeting in Manchester.

They would like to drive but will only be able to do this if it is cheaper than using a train.

We're gonna compare the costs of the two different ways of travel.

If they drive, they'll be reimbursed at a rate of 45 pence per mile.

If they catch the train, they will need to use a taxi to and from each train station.

The taxis will cost two pounds 70 per mile.

The distance from London to Manchester is 210 miles.

So let's start by calculating the cost of using a car.

Well, the total distance travelled is 420 miles.

If you think about this, we've got to get to Manchester, but we also need to get back.

So we're considering both journeys here, our outward journey and our return.

Therefore, the cost of using our car, remember it's 45 pence per mile, is going to be 189 pounds.

Now let's consider what happens if we use the train.

Well, the cost of a return ticket from London to Manchester is 115 pounds.

The distance travelled in our two taxis is 28 miles.

Remember, we need to get from Manchester station to the venue and then back again.

The cost of our taxis is therefore 75 pounds and 60 pence.

So the total cost of using the train plus those taxis is going to be 190 pounds and 60 pence.

Therefore, we can drive to the meeting because that is the cheaper option, although not by much.

Time for a quick check now.

Calculate the difference in cost of travelling by car or by the train and taxis.

The mileage for car use is 45 pence per mile, and the mileage cost for the taxi is two pounds 70, again per mile.

The distance between Liverpool and Bristol is 180 miles, and a return train ticket costs 71 pounds 80 pence, and the miles that we're gonna be travelling in our taxis is 36.

Pause the video and work out is it better for me to drive or better for me to take the train and then some taxis? Work this out now.

Welcome back.

What did you put? Well, let's check our working.

If I use the car, that's a total cost of 162 pounds.

If I use the train and the taxis, that's a total cost of 169 pounds.

So using a car is cheaper by seven pounds.

Now you needed to work that out because I did ask you to calculate the difference in the cost of travelling by the two different methods.

So you did need that final sentence.

It's now time for your final task.

For question one, a personal assistant needs to book accommodation for a three night stay.

Which hotel should they choose? So you've got your three hotels listed here along with any discounts that are available.

Pause the video and work this out now.

Don't forget, you do need to justify which hotel you're choosing.

Good luck.

Welcome back.

Time for question two.

I'd like you to calculate the difference in cost of travelling by car and by train and taxis.

The mileage for car use is 45 pence per mile.

The mileage cost for the taxi is two pounds 70.

The distance between Exeter to Birmingham is 169 miles.

The return train ticket costs 108 pounds and the miles travelled in the taxis is 16.

Pause the video and work out the cost of travelling the two different ways and then the difference between them.

Pause and do this now.

Welcome back.

Time to go through our answers.

Question one.

You should have found that Kip Here was a total of 315 pounds.

Get Your Head Down gave a total of 318 pounds and 60 pence, and A Stay Away came with a total cost of 316 pounds and 25 pence.

So they were very similar costs, but Kip Here was slightly cheaper than the others.

Well done if you put that and you had your three values to justify why Kip Here was the best.

For question two, I asked you to calculate the difference in cost of travelling these two different ways.

Well, by using a car, we've gone 169 miles twice, so that's 338 miles.

And a cost of 45 pence per mile gives us a total cost of 152 pounds and 10 pence.

Going by train and by taxis gives us a total cost of 151 pounds and 20 pence.

In other words, using the train and the taxis is cheaper by 90 pence.

So not a lot in it at all.

Well done if you got that right and you could justify your answer with those values.

It's now time to tell what we've looked at today.

The main areas of maths a personal assistant uses are time and money.

We use time, for example with organising meetings, booking travel, and coordinating plans.

We also use spreadsheets, and this can be really helpful when organising those meetings.

And then we have finance such as booking accommodation, calculating discounts with percentages, and considering budgets.

Well done.

You've worked really well today and I hope you've enjoyed learning about some of the ways maths is used by personal assistants.

I look forward to seeing you for more maths in the future.

Goodbye for now.