GCSE Maths - Year 1 Week 8
Unit 2 Consolidation & Assessment
This is the last week of Unit 2. We finish algebraic fractions with multiplication and division, then spend two days pulling every skill from the last four weeks together with mixed problem solving and forming equations from real-life situations, before a self-directed review and the Unit 2 assessment.
Same shape as previous weeks: warm-up, teach, practice (Foundation, Intermediate or Higher — pick one), mark, exit ticket.
Monday — Algebraic Fractions: Multiplication & Division
What you're learning: How to multiply and divide algebraic fractions, multiplying straight across for multiplication, and flipping the second fraction and multiplying for division, exactly as with ordinary fractions. If this is a new method to you, please go to Khan Academy Algebra Basics - Fractions and complete the sections concerning multiplying and dividing fractions. Take your time and come back here to finish off after.
Warm-up (5 min): Transum — Algebraic Fractions, Level 2 — recall of last week's addition/subtraction work.
Teach (10 min):
Practice (20 min): Pick one path:
Foundation: Transum — Algebraic Fractions, Level 3.
Intermediate: Corbett Maths — Algebraic Fractions Practice Questions, the multiplication/division questions on the page.
Higher: Corbett Maths — Multiplying Algebraic Fractions Textbook Exercise (the longer piece) plus Transum — Algebraic Fractions, Level 5.
Mark & fix: Check, correct, and note why for anything you got wrong.
Exit ticket: Work out the algebraic fraction, giving your answer in its simplest form.
Tuesday — Mixed Algebra Problem Solving
Today's not new content — it's about putting every skill from Weeks 5–7 to use in the same question: notation, simplifying, substitution, expanding, factorising, rearranging, and algebraic fractions.
Warm-up (5 min): Corbett Maths 5-a-day (GCSE), mixed.
Practice (30 min): Work through a mixed set combining several skills per question, for example, expand and simplify an expression, then substitute a value into your answer, or factorise an expression and use the factorised form to simplify a fraction.
The point of today isn't new questions of a single type — it's noticing how these skills connect inside one longer problem, which is exactly how they'll appear in an exam.
Mark & fix: As before, but pay particular attention to where in a multi-step question things went wrong — an error early on (like a sign mistake while expanding) throws off everything that follows, even if every later step was done correctly.
Exit ticket: Expand and simplify 2(x + 3) − (x − 1), then substitute x = 4 into your simplified answer. Show every stage.
Wednesday — Forming Equations from Real-Life Contexts
What you're learning: How to translate a real-life situation, often involving perimeter or angles, into an algebraic equation, using the forming-expressions skills from Week 6 as the starting point.
Warm-up (5 min): Transum — Algebraic Perimeters — recall of forming expressions from Week 6, applied to shapes.
Teach (10 min):
Practice (20 min): Pick one path:
Foundation: Transum — Algebraic Perimeters, the more straightforward questions.
Intermediate: Corbett Maths — Forming Equations Practice Questions, one page.
Higher: Corbett Maths — Textbook Exercise (the longer piece) plus Transum — Algebraic Perimeters, the harder questions.
Mark & fix: As before — for this topic, it's worth checking that your equation actually matches the situation described before you do anything else with it, since a correctly-solved wrong equation still gives a wrong answer.
Exit ticket: A rectangle has a length of (x + 5) cm and a width of x cm. Its perimeter is 34 cm. Write this as an equation, in terms of x.
Thursday — Unit 2 Mixed Review
Today is self-directed. There's no new content — instead, go back through your Week 5–7 reflections and pick out whichever topics you rated lowest.
Warm-up (5 min): Corbett Maths 5-a-day (GCSE), mixed.
Review (30 min):
Re-watch whichever teaching video from Weeks 5–7 felt weakest.
Revisit whichever practice tier (Foundation, Intermediate or Higher) felt hardest at the time on that topic.
If nothing specific stands out, work through the Transum — Algebra hub as a broader diagnostic pass across the whole unit.
Exit ticket: Write down the two topics from Unit 2 you feel least confident about. Be specific — not "brackets" but "expanding two brackets when there's a negative sign involved."
Friday — Unit 2 Assessment
Assessment (45–50 minutes, timed): Complete the Unit 2 assessment, covering everything from algebraic notation through to forming equations.
Marking: Mark against the answers provided in the mark scheme. For anything wrong, note down the specific topic and sub-skill, not just "got it wrong."
Log for later: Write down 2–3 topics to revisit during the interleaving weeks later in the course, so nothing from Unit 2 gets permanently forgotten once we move on.
Next unit: Unit 3 begins — Ratio & Proportion, building on the number and algebra fluency from Units 1 and 2.
