Completing the square and factorising using grids

A resource allowing pupils to use grids to complete the square and factorising trinomials. The first 5 questions are straight forwards enough but the ones following that have been deliberately picked to give deliberate results to facilitate discussion. Q6 gives the same result twice (ie it factorises to give a perfect square), Q7 and Q8 will not factorise (pupils will hopefully note these ones have a completed square constant that is not a square number), and Q9 is already in completed square form).

The second side of the sheet gives pupils different starting points - either the factorised form or completed square form for pupils to work backwards from. The last four questions give pupils a chance to think about what they have done and to create their own trinomials to meet give criteria.

Resource included as a pdf for ease of printing and an Excel file in case you wish to edit or adapt the resource for yourself.