Coronary heart disease lesson for AQA GCSE Biology 4.2.2.4: stents, statins, valves, transplants and evaluation. PowerPoint, worksheets, answers.
What is this resource?
This is a complete lesson on coronary heart disease for AQA GCSE Biology (8461), covering specification point 4.2.2.4. It is the eighth lesson in Topic 2: Organisation and is designed to last 60 minutes.
Students learn why the heart muscle needs its own blood supply, how layers of fatty material narrow the coronary arteries and why this starves the heart muscle of oxygen. They find out how stents and statins are used, what happens when heart valves are faulty and how they are replaced with biological or mechanical valves, and how heart failure is treated with a donor heart, with an artificial heart sometimes used while a patient waits. The lesson ends with an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of treating heart disease with drugs, mechanical devices or transplants, including a 6-mark question.
What’s included
• PowerPoint lesson (33 slides) with full teacher notes on every slide: timings, answers, misconceptions, questioning prompts and guidance on handling the topic sensitively.
• Starter on screen as students arrive, based on a real-world hook: the first human heart transplant in 1967, and how far survival has improved since.
• Learning objectives at three levels of challenge: Developing, Secure and Mastery.
• Three learning activities, each with a core task, a support option, a stretch task and a ‘stand back’ mini-whiteboard check with answers.
• Plenary exit ticket with one question per level, an answers slide for self-assessment and a return to the starter.
• Clear original diagrams: the heart with a blocked coronary artery, a healthy and a narrowed artery, and the three steps of fitting a stent.
• Editable Word worksheets: a blocked artery model with rate of flow calculations (core and support versions), a card sort on heart problems and treatments, and patient case studies with a 6-mark evaluation question (core version and a support version with a writing frame).
• Word lesson plan with objectives, lesson sequence, differentiation, mark schemes and common misconceptions.
Lesson outline
• Starter (5 min): Why might someone need a new heart, and what could doctors try first?
• Activity 1 (14 min): Learn how fatty material in the coronary arteries causes coronary heart disease, then analyse results from a blocked artery model and evaluate the model.
• Activity 2 (17 min): Learn about stents, statins, faulty and replacement valves, heart failure, transplants and artificial hearts, then complete a card sort and group the treatments.
• Activity 3 (14 min): Weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of each treatment, including rejection, donors and personal beliefs, then apply them to three patient cases and a 6-mark evaluation.
• Plenary (8 min): Exit ticket at three levels, then self-assessment against the objectives.
Differentiation and inclusion
Every activity offers support and stretch that all students can choose, so no one is singled out. Support includes hints on every question, clue words, sentence starters and a writing frame for the 6-mark question. Stretch tasks ask students to improve the blocked artery model, explain why exercise can cause chest pain when arteries are narrowed, explain why artificial hearts are not rejected and advise an older patient on choosing a valve.
The slides follow the British Dyslexia Association Style Guide: a clear sans serif font at a large size, a soft cream background, bold (not italics) for emphasis, left-aligned text and plain English. Levels of challenge never rely on colour alone, every slide has a proper title for screen readers, and diagrams include alt text. Teacher notes explain how to handle heart disease, organ donation and religious views sensitively, avoid blaming people for their illness and use person-first language.
How you could use it
• Teach it as a full lesson on coronary heart disease after lessons on the heart and blood vessels, in Year 9 or Year 10.
• Use it as a ready-made cover lesson: the teacher notes explain every step.
• Use the patient cases and 6-mark question to practise evaluation answers before mocks.
• Use the worksheets on their own for homework or revision.
Specification coverage
AQA GCSE Biology 8461, section 4.2.2.4 Coronary heart disease: a non-communicable disease, including evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of treating cardiovascular diseases by drugs, mechanical devices or transplant. Key words: coronary arteries, coronary heart disease, fatty material, cholesterol, stent, statin, faulty valve, biological valve, mechanical valve, heart failure, transplant, artificial heart, rejection. The previous lesson in the series is on arteries, veins and capillaries, and the next lesson is on blood.
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