Vectors – Year 10 maths lesson
Lesson 12 of 37 in the Year 10 maths course
UK version. UK school years, UK spelling and pounds (£). · US Math Department
A complete 45-minute lesson for Year 10 (ages 14–15) that runs on this page – at school or at home. Every answer is marked straight away, with a worked explanation.
- Time
- 45 minutes + 20 min homework
- Year
- Year 10 (ages 14–15)
- You need
- Paper, a pencil and this page
- Marked
- Instantly, with explanations
For parents: how to use this lesson
You don't need to know this topic yourself. The lesson explains each step on screen, one tidy step at a time. Every answer is marked straight away with a worked explanation, so you never have to mark anything.
- Read what your child will learn and the big ideas together.
- Press Start the lesson below and sit with your child for the teaching and the worked examples (about 19 minutes).
- Let them do the practice on their own. They choose Getting started, On track or Challenge – start on On track and move up after a few right in a row.
- Finish with the exit ticket and the talk question: “How can vectors show that two lines are parallel?”
- Later that day or the next day: the homework (20 minutes), then a practice test.
Watch out for
- Going the wrong way along a vector. Going backwards along a makes it −a.
- Adding the magnitudes instead of the vectors. Add the components, then find the length.
Tip for home: Talk about wind and boat speeds: two vectors combining.
What your child will learn
We are learning to add, subtract and multiply vectors and use them to describe paths and prove results.
Success looks like
- I can add and subtract vectors.
- I can find the magnitude of a vector.
- I can use vectors to describe paths.
Key words
- vector
- a quantity with size and direction
- magnitude
- the length of a vector
- scalar
- a number that multiplies a vector
- resultant
- the vector you get by adding vectors
What to have ready
- Paper and a pencil
- This page on a computer, tablet or phone
- For the hands-on part: Give directions as vectors on a grid to move a counter to a target.
The big ideas (for the adult)
A vector has a size and a direction. A column vector shows how far across and how far up or down.
Add vectors by adding their components; a vector multiplied by a number keeps its direction but changes its length.
To find a path between two points, go via points you know: AB = AO + OB. Parallel vectors are multiples of each other.
The lesson, step by step
| Part | Time | How it is checked |
|---|---|---|
| Starter: quick recall | 5 min | Marked by Classfern |
| Teaching input | 10 min | Not assessed, self-checked |
| Worked examples and guided practice | 9 min | Not assessed, marked by Classfern |
| Independent practice | 15 min | Marked by Classfern |
| Plenary and exit ticket | 6 min | Marked by Classfern, self-checked |
Starter, "your turn", practice and exit ticket are marked by Classfern. Worked examples and teaching are not assessed. The hands-on task and the reflection are self-assessed. Explanations in talk are judged by the parent and not recorded.
The lesson
It runs here on the page. No sign-up and no names – progress is kept only in this browser.
Homework and practice at home
20 minutes: 10 practice questions, 3 multiple-choice questions and 2 to remember from earlier work, then a short reflection. New questions every time, all marked instantly.
More practice
More Year 10 maths lessons
- Systematic listing and counting
- Standard form
- Laws of indices
- Surds
- Fractions, decimals and recurring decimals
- Circles: circumference, area, arcs and sectors
- Volume and surface area
- Pythagoras' theorem
- Trigonometry: SOH CAH TOA
- Transformations
- Similarity and congruence
- Circle theorems
- Bearings
- 3-D shapes, plans and elevations
- Quartiles, box plots and spread
- Histograms
- Pie charts and time series graphs
- Scatter graphs and correlation
- Sampling
- Combined events and tree diagrams
- Simplifying expressions
- Expanding brackets
- Factorising
- Solving linear equations
- Inequalities
- Sequences and the nth term
- Straight-line graphs
- Simultaneous equations
- Quadratic equations
- Functions
- Graphs of functions
- Algebraic proof and identities
- Growth and decay
- Direct and inverse proportion
- Scale drawings and maps
- Rates of change from graphs
Curriculum
National Curriculum for England, Year 10: “describe translations as 2D vectors”
National Curriculum for England, Year 10: “apply addition and subtraction of vectors, multiplication of vectors by a scalar, and diagrammatic and column representations of vectors; {use vectors to construct geometric arguments and proofs}”
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Our lessons and questions are our own. They are not written or endorsed by any government department, testing agency or exam board.