Mathematics
Mrs Whitaker - Director of Mathematics
Welcome to the Maths department, my name is Mrs Whitaker and I am Director of Maths.
We currently have 11 staff teaching Mathematics across all year groups. All our staff are passionate about the teaching and learning in their classrooms and will go out of their way to help all pupils succeed.
Our curriculum has been designed so that all pupils can excel in maths and build in confidence. We use lots of pictorial representations and manipulatives in lessons to help pupils understand how the maths works and not just learn a procedure, this helps pupils to apply their knowledge to other situations and areas of maths.
At Park High School our goal is to inspire our learners to achieve an understanding of mathematical concepts. To achieve this we undertake a mastery focused approach which instils in all students the ideal that hard work leads to progress. It is our belief that achievement in Mathematics is for every learner and through our focus on understanding by way of a mastery approach we endeavour to make this a reality.
It is our belief that to build learners who are both resilient and confident we must ensure the journey begins in year 7 and continues consistently until our learners leave Park High School. To achieve this our curriculum is focused on three main avenues.
- The utilisation of concrete and pictorial representations to increase the ability of students to access the underlying concepts of Mathematics rather than just utilising a procedure.
- Ensuring that knowledge is sequenced such that learners can understand how a topic links with the wider Mathematical landscape and coupling this with regular, varied retrieval practise to cement gained understanding into long-term memory.
- The application of Mathematical fluency, with learners accessing topics and tasks which interleave throughout the Mathematics curriculum, as well as drawing on real-world problem solving activities.
Our curriculum
Our students broadly follow the Whiterose Maths scheme of work, tailored to suit our school community.
This scheme allows all learners to access the same work, giving them breadth to challenge their ability. We are encouraging active learning in our lessons with the use of manipulatives, including counters, interlocking cubes, Cuisenaire rods and tiles. Research suggests that their use is beneficial to mathematical understanding, and can help our learners with retention, problem solving and reasoning.
Click here for the 5 year overview
Year 7
Year 7 will be studying:
Assessment
Each unit is assessed through a variety of homework and classwork tasks together with summative assessments at the end of each term. Our assessments help our teachers and pupils identify which topics they need to revisit and work on, and these are then included on subsequent homework sheets and in class retrieval tasks.
Year 8
Year 8 will be studying:
Assessment
Each unit is assessed through a variety of homework and classwork tasks together with summative assessments at the end of each term. Our assessments help our teachers and pupils identify which topics they need to revisit and work on, and these are then included on subsequent homework sheets and in class retrieval tasks.
Year 9
Year 9 will be studying:
Assessment
Each unit is assessed through a variety of homework and classwork tasks together with summative assessments at the end of each term. Our assessments help our teachers and pupils identify which topics they need to revisit and work on, and these are then included on subsequent homework sheets and in class retrieval tasks.
Year 10
GCSE Maths
Year 10 will be studying:
Assessment
Each unit is assessed through a variety of homework and classwork tasks together with summative assessments at the end of each term. Our assessments help our teachers and pupils identify which topics they need to revisit and work on, and these are then included on subsequent homework sheets and in class retrieval tasks.
Year 11
GCSE Maths
Year 11 will be studying:
Assessment
Each unit is assessed through a variety of homework and classwork tasks together with summative assessments at the end of each term. Our assessments help our teachers and pupils identify which topics they need to revisit and work on, and these are then included on subsequent homework sheets and in class retrieval tasks.
GCSE Examinations
We currently follow the GCSE (9–1) – 1MA1 exam specification from Pearson / Edexcel
Here is the link to the specific content
https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-gcses/mathematics-2015.html
Pupils will sit 3 exams in maths
Paper 1 – Non calculator
Paper 2 - Calculators can be used
Paper 3 - Calculators can be used
Each paper is out of 80 marks
Each paper is 1hr 30 min
Pupils can sit Higher or Foundation Tier
Higher tier allows access to grades 4 – 9, Foundation Tier allows access to grades 1-5
How can I help my child?
- Ensure that your child has a scientific calculator (Casio fx-83gtx or Aurora AX595) which they bring to every Mathematics lesson a protractor and a compass would also be useful.
- Encourage your child to practise key skills regularly i.e. mental addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
- Encourage your child to regularly use the Dr Frost website to revise topics already covered and to look ahead at topics which will be studied in the future.
- Encourage pupils to complete all homework to a good standard.
- Look for opportunities to discuss with your child how you use Maths in everyday life. The new GCSE syllabus contains functional questions which link Maths to the real world. Questions cover areas such as booking holidays, reading bus and train timetables, converting currency, decorating rooms, comparing the cost of different goods and services and calculating the monthly cost of gas and electricity.
For Year 10 &11
- Encourage them to attend revision workshops prior to examinations.
- Encourage them to complete past papers either on drfrost or on mathsgenie.
Useful links:
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mathsgenie – https://www.mathsgenie.co.uk/gcse.html This site contains GCSE Mathematics videos, exam worksheets and written solutions for different grades of topics.
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drfrostmaths – https://www.drfrostmaths.com/index.php Access to online past papers which can be completed and automatically marked. Pupils can also access help videos and practise quizzes |
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Corbettmaths- https://corbettmaths.com/contents/ Access to topic videos and practise questions – these are often referred to on our exam QLA’s for pupils to use to fill in knowledge gaps
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