Mathematics in Year 7 [September 2018]

Dear Parent(s) of Year 7 students

The purpose of this e-letter is to provide you with some information about our class structure in Mathematics.  To give every student the opportunity to work and thrive in a comfortable environment with other students of a similar ability, we assign students accordingly in Mathematics.

The allocation of student groups in Year 7 is based on these criteria:

After approximately six or seven weeks of school, the Maths Faculty will look carefully at student progress and may make changes, where necessary.

We also decide on the groups for each student based on their current class teacher’s knowledge of their ability, their work in Mathematics and the end of MYP unit assessment, which the students undertake throughout the year. The units covered this year will be broadly the same in each group, but some groups will have extension tasks, while others will concentrate on core mathematical ideas.

This academic year, we will teach students topics on Number, Algebra, Geometry / Shape and Data handling. Much of this will take place through the learning and exploration of five specific MYP units:

Students in these classes will follow our extended scheme of work, which includes materials from theHaese & Harris text “Mathematics for the International Student” (Year 7 MYP 2). For details, please refer to www.haeseandharris.com.au ISBN 978-1-876543-41-9. We expect the students in these classes to cover the material at an accelerated pace and so we will enrich their learning in Mathematics by including more complex material and possibly some extra topics. There will be challenging extension work to stretch the more mathematically able students in these classes and the pace of work will mean that students will need to understand new ideas quickly.

Students in these classes will also follow our extended scheme of work including the same Haese & Harris text described above. These classes will cover the work at a steady pace and will be able to explore some extension material.  These classes will be mixed ability.

Students in these Growth Sets will also follow the MYP course including the same Haese & Harris text described above. This will be supported, where necessary, by other resources, to provide them extra help because Maths can be challenging for them. These classes are kept deliberately small to allow more teacher contact with students.   Each Growth Set class will have two fully qualified teachers, one from the Maths faculty and the other a teacher specialising in learning support.

During the year, we will test students through regular MYP assessments on the material covered. Consequently, we will be able to see if any students are misplaced, and respond accordingly. These results allow us to refine the setting process at the end of Year 7 so that students progress to a suitable pathway for Year 8.

Our aim in grouping students is to create a class in which a student is most likely to succeed. There is flexibility in the system, and students can be moved at any time, when necessary. However, we prefer not to move students too much, favouring a stable teacher-student relationship, wherever possible.

Please note that students will require only a simple scientific calculator for Mathematics in Year 7 – Texas Instruments model TI-30XB Multiview or similar. They should already have this from the Year 7 start of year stationery pack.

Yours faithfully,

Martin Astill
Head of Mathematics