Mathematics 8 — Course Syllabus

MATATAG Curriculum · Key Stage 3 · School Year 2026–2027

The three-term school year

From SY 2026–2027 the school year runs in three terms, not four quarters. Each term pairs protected instructional time with a block for assessment, remediation, and reporting.

The curriculum guide predates this calendar and still assigns content to four quarters. Those competencies are unchanged — only their container moved. §4 keeps the CG's quarter attribution visible on every row, and §5 maps the four quarters onto the three terms.

1. Course Description

Mathematics 8 is the algebra year. Grade 7 introduced the variable; Grade 8 does arithmetic with it — adding, multiplying, factoring and dividing expressions in which the numbers are not known.

The year has a clear spine, and it is worth seeing before teaching it:

1. Quarter 1 builds the machinery. Monomials, binomials, special products, factoring, rational expressions. Almost nothing here is applied; it is the toolkit.
2. Quarter 2 puts a grid under geometry. The Cartesian plane arrives, and with it distance and midpoint — the first time an algebraic formula answers a geometric question. Volumes of cones and spheres, and the Pythagorean Theorem, sit alongside it.
3. Quarter 3 is the payoff. Linear equations, inequalities, graphs and systems. Fifteen competencies, the largest quarter in the grade, and everything in Quarter 1 and the coordinate work in Quarter 2 exists to make it possible.
4. Quarter 4 turns to data, and formalises probability from the experiments Grade 7 ran.

The single highest-leverage week in the grade is factoring (Quarter 1, competency 8). Quarter 3's equations, Grade 9's quadratics and Grade 10's roots all depend on it, and the word that carries the difficulty is completely — learners stop at the first factorisation they find, which is correct and unfinished.

Contexts stay concrete: a tricycle's earnings against fuel costs (profit and loss), instalment plans on an appliance (buying on terms), examination scores (primary data), and the barangay's own records (secondary data).

2. Grade Level Standard

Quoted verbatim from the MATATAG Mathematics Curriculum Guide (DepEd, August 2023), page 23.

GRADE 8 — The learner demonstrates knowledge, skills and understanding in relation to the curriculum content domains Number and Algebra (algebraic expressions and operations with monomials, binomials, and multinomials; special products for binomials, and factorization of polynomials; rational algebraic expressions and equations; rules for obtaining terms in sequences; plotting points, and finding distance and the midpoint of line segments on the Cartesian coordinate plane; earning money, profit and loss, 'best buys,' buying on terms; linear equations in one variable; linear inequalities in one variable and their graphs; linear equations in two variables and their graphs; systems of linear equations in two variables; linear inequalities in two variables); Measurement and Geometry (volume of pyramids, cones, and spheres; the Pythagorean Theorem; triangle inequality theorems); and Data and Probability (measures of central tendency of ungrouped data; measures of variability for ungrouped data; interpretation and analysis of graphs from primary and secondary data; experimental and theoretical probability; the Fundamental Counting Principle). This knowledge, skills, and understanding is applied, with the use of technology, to the processes within Mathematics of critical thinking, problem solving, communicating, reasoning, and making connections between topic areas.

3. Content Domains

What Grade 8 does not cover: quadratic equations and their graphs (Grade 9), functions, domain and range (Grade 9), congruence and similarity proofs (Grade 9), trigonometric ratios (Grade 9), and circle theorems (Grade 10). Grade 8 factors quadratic trinomials but does not solve quadratic equations with them — that step is Grade 9, and it is exactly one step.

Where the domains sit. Quarter 3 is Number and Algebra alone — fifteen competencies of it. Quarter 4 is Data and Probability alone. Quarters 1 and 2 mix.

4. Content Map

Every entry below is quoted or closely transcribed from the official curriculum guide (DepEd, August 2023, pages 56–59), committed at docs/research/source/. Competency numbers are the CG's own.

Performance tasks are this syllabus's suggestions, not CG content.

CG Quarter 1 — Central Tendency, and the Algebra Toolkit

Taught in Term 1, weeks 1–9

CG Quarter 2 — The Cartesian Plane, Solids, Pythagoras, and Money

Opens in Term 1 (weeks 10–11); completed in Term 2 (weeks 12–17)

Competency 12 sits in a geometry quarter, and nothing in the CG explains why. Earning money, profit and loss, best buys and buying on terms have no relationship to pyramids or the Pythagorean Theorem. §5 places it in the same week as the triangle inequality theorems purely because that is where the count lands — it is not a pedagogical pairing and should not be taught as one. If your budget of work allows, move it beside Grade 7's Quarter 1 financial work instead; the two belong together.

CG Quarter 3 — Linear Equations, Inequalities, Graphs and Systems

Opens in Term 2 (weeks 18–22); completed in Term 3 (weeks 23–26)

CG Quarter 4 — Variability, Graphs, and Probability

Taught in Term 3, weeks 27–33

5. Term-by-Term Scope and Sequence

Thirty-three instructional weeks, eleven per term — an even split this repository chose, not one DO 009 specifies.

⚠️ The real terms are not equal. DO No. 009, s. 2026 is reported as 54 / 55 / 61 instructional days, each with a 10-day end-of-term block, across 201 class days — roughly 34 teaching weeks split 11 / 11 / 12. The Budget of Work is what should settle it, and it remains unobtained. If you are pacing a real class, give Term 3 the slack.

Every one of the 51 CG competencies appears exactly once. Thirteen weeks pair naturally adjacent competencies — marked ⊕.

What is authoritative here and what is not. The CG assigns content to quarters; DepEd's Budget of Work assigns it to weeks. This repository has neither the Grade 8 Budget of Work nor the DO 009 implementing annexes — both are behind a network block (source-catalogue.md). The grid below is this repository's proposal. Adjust freely.

Term 1 — June to September

End-of-term block — performance task, Term 1 examination, remediation, reporting.

Term 2 — September to December

End-of-term block — performance task, Term 2 examination, remediation, reporting.

Term 3 — January to April

End-of-term block — performance task, Term 3 examination, closing activities, reporting.

Coverage check

All 51 CG competencies are placed. None is taught twice, and none is dropped.

Weeks 25 and 26 each carry three competencies, and together they are the tightest fortnight in the grade. Systems of linear equations — defining, graphing, classifying, solving algebraically, applying — is genuinely three weeks of work compressed into two. It sits at the end of Quarter 3 because everything before it is prerequisite. If Term 3 runs long, as DO 009's day counts suggest, spend the extra week here, not in Quarter 4.

6. Assessment and Grading

Per DO No. 015, s. 2026. Mathematics is a Key Stage 3 core learning area:

Transmutation is being withdrawn, and this school year sits in the middle of that.

class-record.html implements this as a year switch.

⚠️ Reported, not verified — and note the key stage. Two independent search passes returned the same 20 / 50 / 30 split attributed to the Key Stage 2–3 core learning areas. Grade 8 Mathematics falls inside that, but the Key Stage 3 attribution is an inference. See source-catalogue.md. Confirm before computing a real grade.

Formative assessment used weekly

• Exit tickets — one question at the end of each session
• The expansion check — for any factorisation, multiply it back out. It is the only self-check in algebra that requires no answer key, and it should become automatic in Week 7
• The game's Teacher Panel — per-round accuracy against the week's competency
• Error hunts — learners find and correct a planted mistake

7. Learner Support

8. Materials

No-cost / recycled — the default.

• Algebra tiles cut from cardboard — one large square (x²), rectangles (x) and small squares (1), in two colours for positive and negative. Made once, used all of Quarter 1, and the single most useful object in the grade
• Squared paper for the coordinate plane and all of Quarter 3
• String, tins and rice or sand for the volume work in Quarter 2
• Old examination score lists — the primary data for Quarter 4
• Coins, dice or numbered bottle caps for probability
• Chalk and the board

If available.

• One projector or television for the slide deck
• Any device with a browser for the game
• A ruler per learner for Quarter 3's graphs

9. Curriculum Verification — Completed

• docs/research/source/MATATAG-Mathematics-CG-2023-Grades1-10.pdf — DepEd, August 2023, 73 pages.

Part of the E-turo MATATAG artifact set. Companion files: lesson-plan-ilaw.md · lesson-plan.md · assessment.md · offline-activities.md · slides.html · game.html · worksheet.html · class-record.html