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TheSchoolRun.com closure date

As we informed you a few months ago, TheSchoolRun has had to make the difficult decision to close due to financial pressures and the company has now ceased trading. We had hoped to keep our content available through a partnership with another educational provider, but this provider has since withdrawn from the agreement.

As a result, we now have to permanently close TheSchoolRun.com. However, to give subscribers time to download any content they’d like to keep, we will keep the website open until 31st July 2025. After this date, the site will be taken down and there will be no further access to any resources. We strongly encourage you to download and save any resources you think you may want to use in the future.

In particular, we suggest downloading:

You should already have received 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep. If you haven’t received these, please contact us at [email protected] before 31st July 2025, and we will send them to you.

We are very sorry that there is no way to continue offering access to resources and sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.

What is the column method?

What is the column method?
We explain what the column method is, how it is set out and why it is an efficient method for working out addition and subtraction.

What is the column method?

Column method of addition and subtraction is the method where numbers are 'carried' and 'borrowed'. It is set out like this:
 

Column addition

Column subtraction


This is a quick and efficient method for working out addition and subtraction, but the downside is that a child could use this method without having any awareness of place value (that is: they would not understand that the 3 in the above number is not 3, but in fact 30). It also means that they are not learning to add and subtract multiples of 10 or 100 (for example: 30 + 90, 120 - 50 etc). In order to help children understand these concepts, teachers often use partitioning for addition and a number line for subtraction.