MATHEMATICS

Year 7 And Year 9

This year has been an impelling year for the Math’s Department, a torchbearer in engaging minds, an encourager in solving day to day problems and an enhancer of life skills which are daunting for any young person in this modern day and age. As Carl Friedrich Gauss once said, “It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment”. This could be said for our girls, as they are constantly acquiring new mathematical skills which they are enjoying learning.

The girls have had an astounding year, which has enabled them to develop a concrete knowledge on various Mathematical topics.

In key Stage 3 we use the Mymaths books and the myimaths online platform to help the girls develop their knowledge. Before transition of the year 7’s extensive time was taken on recapping previous topics to understand their competency level. This helped us recognize the various gaps in their mathematical knowledge and gave us a benchmark for each child. A tailored approach was taken by giving differentiated work which helped every child. Stem was embedded into math’s by giving them a Math’s project which consisted of them booking a holiday for themselves and their friends. Different variants of STEM were rolled out over the year.

The Year 8 had more gaps in their Mathematical understanding which meant more time and effort was taken. To tackle this problem a more structured approach was implemented, Form Quizzes were administered to them fortnightly to monitor performance, myimaths online platform was put into effect which allowed them to access homework on a continual basis. In the second term, an extra-curricular math’s club was launched which was overly subscribed by the year 10. This will be later adapted on a more regular basis helping the more needy students. I was overly elated by Year 8 Math’s project which consisted of making Mathematical board games, which made it very hard to choose a winner, so it became a shared reward.

The year 9 started off the year with prior knowledge from year 7/8 before igcse topics were introduced to them. A diverse number of new topics was introduced to them in Number, Algebra and Geometry, giving them an entry level into igcse format.

It’s been a pleasure teaching the Year 10 students who have not only shown passion, acumen, hard work and hunger for knowledge. Prior to the start of the academic year these girls had 18 months of interruption through online learning, and I am astounded on how they have hit the ground running and excelled and exceeded expectations. Constantly challenging them has been the denominator of their progress.

Let’s see what next year brings for our future Mathematicians.