Senior Department | Maths
At Cranmore we aim to run schemes of work covering the widest possible range of mathematical topics at levels of understanding appropriate to the abilities of the pupils.
In the Senior Department, we teach to the mathematics National Curriculum and beyond so that the majority may reach the highest possible level in the Common Entrance Examination. Also, we prepare the most able pupils for Scholarship Examinations to a significant number of different Independent Senior Schools.
We prepare all pupils for entry into National Competitions such as the Primary Mathematics Challenge, the UK Junior Mathematical Challenge and the UK Junior Mathematical Olympiad.
The Department appreciates that regular assessment of pupils is fundamental to good teaching. Consistency in assessment is essential. It helps ensure that, when judgements are made, there is fairness for pupils across classes, and it can give pupils, parents, the Headmaster and the Governors confidence in the validity of such judgements. Assessment is a window on learning; the wider the range of evidence we seek, the greater the range of achievements revealed. Assessment in mathematics is carried out in a variety of ways: common tests, homework, extended pieces of work, past papers and examinations as well as open class discussion.
By the end of their time at Cranmore, we hope that our pupils will have come to realise the relevance and importance of mathematics and that mathematical results are based upon deductive reasoning, self-consistent and free from contradictions. Further, we hope that our pupils will have been exposed to the history and development of mathematics and will have had opportunities to use the subject confidently in a variety of circumstances.
As Einstein said, it is the astounding usefulness of the useless, which has arisen as a result of intellectual curiosity, that makes this subject so pursuable.
