Are maths lessons provided in international schools too simple?
What if my child doesn't understand maths lessons taught in English? How can the school get students interested in maths from an early age?
How can we guide them to develop mathematical thinking?
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At Harrow Haikou, maths is a subject that children love, and as parents recognise. It is crucial to their children's further education. Harrow Haikou has launched two consecutive Maths Cloud Classes, featuring the Head of Maths Department of Harrow Haikou Lower and Upper Schools respectively. Parents were keen to ask questions during the live sessions and were impressed by the professionalism of Harrow's maths teaching. Today we have summarised some of the key points shared in the live stream for those parents who couldn’t attend the event.
Review of Cloud Maths Class at Pre-Prep
✔ Taking the best of Chinese and Western teaching.
✔ Focusing on developing interest and mathematical thinking development.
✔ Using English for reasoning.
✔ Teachers can observe each student carefully.
✔ Taking the best of Chinese and Western maths teaching
Mr Mark Johnson, the Deputy Head of Lower School (Academic), introduced the features of bilingual maths teaching, the Pre-Prep school has bilingual teachers who work with the homeroom teachers.
「We combine the strengths of Chinese mathematics teaching methods with those of Western teaching to develop students' problem-solving skills and the ability to use mathematics in different contexts. Each week, the foreign teacher and the bilingual maths teacher prepare lessons together to ensure that the subject framework is consistent and that they learn from each other about Chinese and Western mathematical methods and applications.」
Mr. James Yin, the Bilingual Maths Teacher, is a supplement to maths teaching at Pre-Prep, rather than a replacement for homeroom teaching.
James Yin
Bilingual Maths Teacher
-Bachelor of the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Melbourne
-Master of Education at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
-Registered teacher in the State of Victoria, Australia
-Former teacher at Thomas Carr - a local private school in Australia and the classes he taught have achieved the highest scores in the school
-Former Sixth Form teacher at Yew Wah International Education School in China
In Mr Yin's classroom, the focus is on ensuring that students fully understand the maths taught in their mother tongue. When students learn maths in their mother tongue, they are able to illustrate their solutions first in their mother tongue and then in English. Mr. Yin is highly professional in Chinese pedagogy. We have witnessed the progress of many students.
As an international school that values bilingualism and biculturalism, the introduction of bilingual maths teachers can help us to build a truly complete and mature bilingual curriculum.
In the lesson preparation stage, the Chinese and foreign teaching teams work together to blend the academic rigor and difficulty of the Chinese maths curriculum with the foreign maths curriculum that focuses on developing divergent thinking and problem-solving skills. Ultimately this could lead to a mature mathematics curriculum, which would use students' cognitive development in the first language to facilitate the acquisition of subject skills in the second language.
——Ken Du
Director of Bilingual Education (Whole School)
✔ Mathematical thinking is needed in daily life
How do we teach maths?
In the live stream, the teacher uses a concrete example from teaching to help parents understand the teaching logic and gives examples of the Concrete-Representational-Abstract approach to teaching maths.
Students are introduced to a new mathematical concept through the use of concrete resources (e.g. fruit, base ten blocks, fraction bars, etc). When they are comfortable solving problems with physical aids, they are given problems with pictures – usually visual representations of the concrete objects they were using.
The day of online session was also World Maths Day; our Pre-Prep maths team prepared lots of fun activities, scavenger hunts, puzzle-solving games and more to inspire the children to work together to find the answers.
In lively themed lessons, children not only gain a deeper understanding of what they are learning, but they also gain more creativity and realise that mathematics is a living subject and, naturally, develop a strong interest in it.
Review of Cloud Maths Class at Upper School
✔ What to study in maths at Upper School?
✔ How to prepare for IGCSE tests?
✔ How does A Level Maths link to university courses?
✔ How do students who are not proficient enough in English keep up with their maths lessons?
In the live maths lesson, Mr. Jason Booth, the Head of the Maths Department at Upper School, gave us a comprehensive overview of the following topics on the maths classes for Upper School students and IGCSE maths preparation that parents are most concerned about.
✔ Teaching maths at the Upper School focuses on developing students' independent inquiry and self-directed learning skills.
「Mr. Booth explains, "At the secondary level, we give the initiative of the classroom to the students to teach them and allow them to share and communicate their learning through independent workshops."」
At the Upper School, we divide maths into four main topics - number, algebra, geometry, and statistics.
Depending on these broad topics, bilingualism is incorporated to help students understand the teaching in both languages.
A clear emphasis is placed on helping students to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying logic of the knowledge. It is not just about faster calculations, but about how to apply mathematical knowledge to real-life situations and to their future careers and lives.
At Y6/G5 and Y8/G7, we provide different bilingual support depending on the ability of the students.
Bilingual maths lessons are combined with a bilingual teaching assistant in the classroom to help those students who are less able to speak English to keep up with the pace of learning for everyone.
As students move into Y9/G8-Y10/G9, students at Harrow Innovation and Leadership Academy (HILA) and Harrow International School (HIS) are provided with two slightly different curriculum frameworks.
The curriculum framework for HILA students is guided by the Chinese Curriculum and is designed to cover the core knowledge of both the Chinese Curriculum and IGCSE to aid in-depth subject exploration in a more inclusive learning environment. Four English Maths lessons and two Maths lessons are provided for HILA students a week. For international students, the curriculum focuses on the subject requirements of IGCSE, with 6 English Maths lessons a week.
✔ How students can prepare for their IGCSE tests?
As they move into Year 10, HILA students will continue to return to English-led maths classes and prepare fully for their IGCSEs alongside international students.
Harrow Haikou is a Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) accredited school, so we integrate the Cambridge curriculum deeply with the Chinese National Curriculum (CNC) so that students are fully prepared for their exams and are assured of the quality of the content they are studying. This approach helps our students not only prepare for their IGCSE tests, but also complete the Chinese National Curriculum at the same time.
CNC focuses particularly on algebra and geometry, with the IGCSE course focusing more on topics such as statistics. Our curriculum takes these topics fully into account.
When students enter Year 10 in preparation for IGCSE, the tests are divided into two categories, Core and Extended, and students are allocated to the level test that best suits their ability.
✔ How does A Level Maths link to university courses?
We are already adapting our curriculum to the changes in IGCSE tests.
Once students have completed their IGCSE maths test, they will begin their A Level preparation and eventually apply for entry to university with A Level results. This requires students to have strong mathematical skills and English language skills, particularly in mechanics and statistics.
A Level requires two years of continuous study, with the first year consisting of pure mathematics and mechanics and the second year consisting of pure mathematics, probability, and statistics. Many universities around the world require a grade in mathematics, especially in science-related subjects such as technology, engineering, and mathematics. For these subjects, students are required to achieve a grade of A in Mathematics.
The Harrow A Level course will therefore provide them with a good foundation in mathematics for their chosen future studies.
✔ How do students who are not proficient enough in English keep up with their maths lessons?
I find it very enjoyable to teach maths at Harrow Haikou and I find that Chinese students will generally be better at core maths skills.
They are very willing to study in depth and they understand that Maths will provide them with more opportunities for their future career choices. During these two years of teaching, I have found my students to be hardworking and dedicated, and I can often see Harrow students helping each other in our classrooms.
They are very willing to help each other when they see their peers struggling, especially when the class is of varying levels. Helping each other is not only a sign of their good qualities, but it can also further their understanding of knowledge.
After the class, Tiger Matsushita, the Shaftesbury scholarship winner for the 22/23 Academic Year, shared his feelings about studying maths at Harrow:
“I really enjoyed learning about maths and my IGCSE options are computing, history, economics and biology. You can find that my course selection is basically related to maths, and the field I want to study in the future is technology.
I think the main feature of the maths classes at Harrow Haikou is the free yet flexible learning environment that the teachers provide for us. When I first joined the school, I was already ahead of many of my classmates in maths. So, my maths teacher would give me higher level maths tasks and this approach was very good for me. In the future, I want to study at a university in the United States to experience a different kind of learning life, and my goal is to always be improving!”
From the sharing, we found that the teachers focus on teaching the children and developing their thinking skills in many ways at the same time. In the process, we discovered the strengths of each child and were able to develop a teaching plan to suit each child's situation.
The whole sharing session provides a lot of information. To help parents access the full content, we have also prepared a replay of the live stream. Parents can scan the QR code below to follow the account of Harrow Haikou to view the whole session.