Rotational Symmetry

Prior Knowledge:
• A basic understanding of rotational symmetry – this sheet is great to use as revision.
• You will also need some tracing paper, a pencil and a ruler to complete the questions.

A shape has rotational symmetry when it can be rotated and still look exactly the same.

The order of rotational symmetry of a shape is the number of times it can be rotated around a
full circle and still look identical.

For example, if a right-angled triangle is rotated a full 360°, it never looks the same except when it
arrives back at its original starting position. In this case, we say that it only has rotational symmetry
of order one. Sometimes, you might see this referred to as no rotational symmetry.

You can find the order of rotational symmetry using tracing paper.

Example
Find the order of rotational symmetry of the rectangle.

First, use the tracing paper to trace over the rectangle.

1 of 5
 Rotational Symmetry
Then, mark a corner of the tracing paper with an arrow pointing up, to
help remember the starting position.
With all shapes, there’s a single, fixed point called the centre of
rotation around which everything else rotates. For this example, the
centre of rotation is inside the rectangle, which means the shape stays
where it is and spins.

Next, rotate the tracing paper over the original image and count the
number of times the rectangles coincide.

Here you can see that the rectangle has rotated onto itself.

The rectangle has rotated onto itself again when we return back to
the starting position. We know this is the case because our arrow is
pointing up again.

Therefore, a rectangle has rotational symmetry of order 2. Remember, we include the starting/
finishing position. This means the rectangle looked exactly the same at its starting position and
when it was upside-down.

2 of 5
 Rotational Symmetry
Your Turn
1. For each shape, state the order of rotational symmetry.

 

 

3 of 5
 Rotational Symmetry
2. a. State the order of rotational symmetry for each of the regular polygons below.

Pentagon Hexagon Heptagon

  

Octagon Nonagon Decagon

  

b. Explain what you notice about the relationship between the order of rotational symmetry
and the number of sides.

3. Find three upper-case (capital) letters with rotational symmetry of order 2.

4. Shade two more squares to make a pattern with rotational symmetry of order 2.

4 of 5
 Rotational Symmetry
Challenge
Draw a shape with rotational symmetry of order 3.

5 of 5