standardvsextended

Construction of Y10 Maths groups In June of this year we wrote to parents to inform them that Maths is offered at two levels (Standard and Extended) in the last two years of MYP, and that it was our intention to construct five Y10 Maths groups from the 4 homerooms with this in mind. Generally speaking, the Extended Maths course takes a student deeper and further with a topic, and is taught at quite a high pace.

We would like to take this opportunity to give you an update on what has happened in this regard. We now have our five groups. They have been put together by looking at student performance during Year 9 and, crucially, the opinions of the teachers who taught them in Year 9. In some cases we have also looked at ISA Test performance (as a measure of "potential" ability). The groups we have are labelled, but for timetabling purposes only - there is no top group, second, third etc.

As we started Year 10, we identified two groups of students who we believed should follow the Extended course. These groups are currently taught by (in no special order) Mr Slosberg and Ms Li. We have a third group, taught by Mr Davis, which will also follow the Extended course, at least for the time being. We have a two other (quite small) groups - taught by Mr Millard and Ms Luk. We believe the students in these groups will benefit most by following the Standard course.

The first unit taught in Year 10 has actually been (almost) common to all students, and we will use the results of the upcoming assessment in order to help us review the original construction of the five groups. Many of the subsequent units will also be common (or very close to common), but we will start to see the Extended groups go that much further and deeper with the material.

Our credo is that students should be in the group that best suits their mathematical abilities and needs. Thus it may be necessary to move students between groups at appropriate times through the course.

I hope you will agree with us that these arrangements should be viewed in a very positive light - we have smaller than usual groups, with a somewhat smaller ability range within each group, following a differentiated programme.