GCSE Maths - Year 1 Week 3
- Sallyann Clark
- 56 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Week 3: Powers, Roots & Order of Operations
This week moves into powers and roots; squares, cubes, and their opposites, then ties everything together with the order of operations (BIDMAS), one of the most quietly important rules in all of maths. We'll finish with a first look at index laws, which will matter a lot once algebra starts in a few weeks.
Same shape as previous weeks: warm-up, teach, practice (Foundation, Intermediate or Higher — pick one), mark, exit ticket.
Monday — Squares, Cubes & Other Powers
What you're learning: What squaring and cubing a number actually means, and how to recognise and work with powers of 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Warm-up (5 min): Corbett Maths 5-a-day (GCSE)
Teach (10 min): Watch:
Squaring a number means multiplying it by itself (5² = 5 × 5 = 25). Cubing means multiplying it by itself twice more (5³ = 5 × 5 × 5 = 125). It's worth memorising the square numbers up to 15 × 15 and the cubes up to 5³, they come up constantly from here on. So, in your journal write out all the square numbers to 15x15 and cubed numbers to 5x5x5.
Practice (20 min): Pick one path:
Foundation: Transum — Power Play, Level 1.
Intermediate: Corbett Maths — Square Numbers/Roots Practice, the full page.
Higher: Khan Academy — Exponents & order of operations down to Quiz 1 and Transum — Power Play, Level 2. ( If you are aiming for the higher paper and completing these higher activities, your practice session will be getting a little longer. But never go longer than 40 mins, just stop.
Mark & fix: Check, correct, and note why for anything you got wrong.
Exit ticket: What is 6² and what is 4³? Show the repeated multiplication, not just the answer.
Tuesday — Square Roots & Cube Roots
What you're learning: Square roots and cube roots, the reverse of squaring and cubing, and how to estimate roots of numbers that aren't perfect squares or cubes.
Warm-up (5 min): Topmarks — Hit the Button (square numbers mode) — recall of yesterday's squares.
Teach (10 min): Watch:
Practice (20 min): Pick one path:
Foundation: Transum — Power Play, rest of Level 1.
Intermediate: Corbett Maths — Cube Numbers & Roots Practice
Higher:Textbook Exercise and Transum — Power Play, Level 2.
Mark & fix: As before.
Exit ticket: Between which two whole numbers does √50 lie? Explain how you know without a calculator.
Wednesday — Order of Operations (BIDMAS)
What you're learning: The correct order to carry out a calculation with mixed operations — Brackets, Indices, Division/Multiplication, Addition/Subtraction — so that everyone gets the same answer to the same calculation.
Warm-up (5 min): Corbett Maths 5-a-day (GCSE)
Teach (10 min): Watch:
Practice (20 min): Pick one path:
Foundation: Transum — BIDMAS, early levels, or as far as you can go.
Intermediate: Corbett Maths — Order of Operations Practice plus Transum — BIDMAS as far as you can go.
Higher: Khan Academy — Exponents & order of operations down to Quiz 2 from order of operations down to unit test.Plus Transum — Missing Operations.
Mark & fix: As before — BIDMAS mistakes are almost always about doing operations left-to-right instead of in the correct priority order, so if something's wrong, check that first.
Exit ticket: Work out 3 + 4 × (7 − 2)². Show each step in order.
Thursday — Index Laws: Introduction
What you're learning: The first rules for combining powers of the same number, what happens when you multiply or divide terms with the same base, which will come back constantly once algebra starts.
Warm-up (5 min): Transum — Bidmaze — recall of yesterday's order of operations.
Teach (10 min): Watch:
Practice (20 min): Pick one path:
Foundation: Transum — Indices, early levels.
Intermediate: Corbett Maths — Indices Practice plus Textbook Exercise.
Higher: Khans Academy - Exponents, Roots and scientific notation down to Quiz 2 and Transum — Indices, later levels, plus the worked examples from the Laws of Indices video.
Mark & fix: As before.
Exit ticket: Simplify 3⁴ × 3² and 5⁶ ÷ 5². Write down the rule you used for each.
Friday — Consolidation
Today's not about new content, it's about locking in this week's ideas.
Quiz (10–15 min): Topmarks — Hit the Button (square numbers mode) or Transum: Bidmaze, Level 3, which mixes in squares and roots.
Weekend printable : MEP Year 7 Practice Book — Unit 8: Arithmetic, Division of Decimals (PDF), which includes a section on BODMAS — good pen-and-paper reinforcement of this week's order-of-operations work. Complete as much as you are able to.
End-of-week reflection (5 min): In your notebook, answer:
Which topic this week felt most solid?
Which topic do you want to see again before we move on?
Rate your confidence 1–5 on: squares/cubes, roots, BIDMAS, index laws.
Keep this reflection — we'll circle back to anything you flagged as shaky in the mixed-review session at the end of Unit 1 (Week 4), so nothing gets forgotten.
Next week: Rounding, estimation and systematic listing strategies, the last new content in Unit 1, followed by a mixed review and the Unit 1 assessment.
