
Teach pupils to calculate surface area from nets with this editable, 59-slide Year 8 maths lesson. The lesson connects the faces in a net to the outside of a solid, helping pupils identify every face, calculate its area and combine the results without missing or double-counting faces.
Designed for whole-class projection, the PowerPoint supports a print-free lesson: display the questions and ask pupils to work in exercise books or on mini-whiteboards. Clear edge labels, short pointers where needed and notices that diagrams are not to scale help pupils interpret the measurements. Adapt the slides for your class.
WHAT IS INCLUDED?
• One editable PowerPoint containing 59 slides.
• Six retrieval questions with grouped answers.
• Six prerequisite questions with grouped answers.
• Illustrated vocabulary covering nets, surface area, congruent faces and square units.
• Teaching slides connecting cubes, cuboids and triangular prisms to their nets.
• A six-example I Do/We Do modelling grid with corresponding answers.
• Twenty individual AFL questions, each followed by its answer slide.
• A 30-question practice page with a complete answer page.
• Developing, Secure, Greater Depth and Super Challenge tasks together on one page, with answers on subsequent slides.
MODELLING AND GUIDED PRACTICE
The I Do/We Do page uses three matched pairs: examples (1) and (4) focus on cubes, (2) and (5) on cuboids, and (3) and (6) on triangular prisms. Space around the nets allows the teacher to model calculations and pupils to contribute to the paired examples. Worked answers show how the individual face areas form the total.
PRACTICE AND PROGRESSION
The main practice page contains three columns of ten questions. Pupils vary one stated length at a time while using the shared net above each column. This controlled repetition helps them connect a changing dimension with its effect on surface area.
The differentiated page provides eight Developing questions, eight Secure questions and five Greater Depth questions, followed by a multipart Super Challenge. Tasks move from calculating areas to finding missing lengths, identifying omitted faces, correcting units, explaining changes and forming an expression. The shared diagrams are named Figures 1–3 and referenced in the questions.
The Super Challenge asks pupils to join cubes in a row and calculate the painted area when one end remains unpainted. Pupils then explain a rule for any positive whole number of cubes and find the smallest number needed to exceed a stated area.
ASSESSMENT AND ANSWERS
The AFL sequence checks cubes, cuboids and triangular prisms, including perpendicular triangle heights, missing dimensions and incomplete surface-area calculations. Answers are also supplied for retrieval, prerequisites, modelling, the 30-question practice set and every differentiated task.
Suitable for Year 8, KS3 consolidation, tutoring and revision. Topic reference: M884, Surface Area from Nets.
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