Mathswatch Higher

[Muriel Pelley]

3Difficulty transferring knowledge

Students may struggle when they are required to connect the abstract or conceptual aspects of math with reality. Understanding what symbols represent in the physical world is important to how easily a child will remember a concept. For example, inspecting and comparing one third cup of water and one half cup of water in a measuring cup will be much more meaningful to a child than simply being told that one half is more than one third.

4. Making connections

Some students have difficulty making meaningful connections within and across mathematical experiences. For instance, a student may not readily comprehend the relation between numbers and the quantities they represent. If this kind of connection is not made, math skills may be not anchored in any meaningful or relevant manner. This makes them harder to recall and apply in new situations.

5. Incomplete understanding of the language of math

Struggles with math may be driven by difficulty with language. Children may also experience difficulty with reading, writing, and speaking. In math, a language weakness is comes into play when children are presented with difficult vocabulary, some of which they may rarely hear outside of the math classroom. These students may have difficulty understanding written or verbal directions or explanations and find word problems especially difficult to understand.

This weakness has obvious disadvantages, as it requires that a student rely almost entirely on rote memorization of verbal or written descriptions of math concepts that most people take for granted. Some mathematical problems also require students to combine higher-order thinking with perceptual skills (e.g., determine what shape will result when a complex 3-D figure is rotated).

Mathematics is a crucial part of everyday life and plays a vital role in many jobs. It is also essential to science, technology and engineering, and there is a huge demand for mathematical specialists. It is therefore fundamentally important to ensure that all pupils have the best possible mathematics education. They need to understand the mathematics they learn so they can be creative in solving problems, as well as being confident and fluent in developing and using the mathematical skills so valued in the world of industry and higher education.

As a faculty, we strive to create an atmosphere which stimulates a high level of curiosity about maths and encourages students. We consistently share good practice to ensure that our students feel safe, supported and challenged in their learning. We aim to equip our pupils with the skills and confidence to become active citizens.

Pupils follow a maths mastery course which is embedded in year 7. This builds on from learning at KS2 and involves students learning a focused part of the curriculum each half term in depth. Lessons are structured so that students can consolidate and strengthen their skills through a variety of different tasks. Our purpose is to develop learners that have a fluid and flexible schema. A Mastery approach allows learning to be sufficiently embedded, deep, connected, and fluent in order for it to be sustained, built upon and further connected to. This in turns allows for a secure foundation on which more advanced content can be built upon.

Greater Manchester Education Trust. Registered address: Whalley Range 11-18 High School, Wilbraham Road, Whalley Range, Manchester, M16 8GW. A charitable company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (company number: 08913502)

Those students sitting the foundation exam will only have to learn some formulae listed, whereas higher students will be expected to learn all formulae. Formulae marked with an asterisk (*) are applicable to higher students only.

The best way to understand a compound measure is by visualising each compound in a different part of the below triangle. If you cover the one compound you wish to find out, you should be able to see which equation you need to do with the information provided in the exam.

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