Curriculum Journey

 

Year 7/Year 8

For most students , the first term of KS3 Maths at The Boulevard Academy will be used to consolidate previous skills through a mastery approach. This enables ALL students to confidently master key skills needed for the subject, once mastered they can then apply these skills to more difficult concepts and problem solving.

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The students will study a variety of different concepts which, although Maths specific, will help them apply to future study and they will continue to use after leaving us.

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We follow the ‘Discovering Maths’ scheme of work throughout the course of the two years at The Boulevard Academy, which enables all students to develop skills already mastered in key stage two and progress to the AQA scheme of work in the Spring term of year 9.

 

Year 9

The gateway year allows students the opportunity to further develop the core skills that they have acquired over the previous two years of study. In-depth work consolidating skills will be a common theme throughout the year in order to promote greater levels of achievement and application to problem solving. Students will continue the ‘Discovering Maths‘ scheme in the first term , which combines learning from the two previous years and prepares them to move to the AQA foundation course for learning in the new Year. This starts their journey towards their GCSE’s and ensures all students are prepared for learning in year 10.

 

GCSE

Throughout years 10 and 11, students take part in a curriculum that is designed to fully prepare them for the new GCSE in Maths (AQA). The scheme of learning has been carefully designed for complete curriculum coverage and opportunities to re-visit all key concepts regularly to ensure skills and understanding are fully embedded. The curriculum has been sequenced in such a way that core mathematical concepts are fully understood by all students and a solid foundation of understanding is achieved before advancing to higher level topics. The curriculum places a particular focus on building abilities in problem solving and identifying the mathematical skills required to complete multistep problems.

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Students are assessed regularly, checking that good progress is being made, and thorough feedback is given, allowing students to reflect deeply on their learning and identify their own improvement targets. These formal assessments are also used to identify if students are most suitable to sit either higher or foundation exam papers at the end of year 11.

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Alongside the formal teaching of the GCSE curriculum, students develop an awareness of the importance of Mathematics within the wider world, in particular, interdisciplinary links to other subjects, and the importance of a strong understanding of maths for a wide variety of career choices such as those within finance, science and engineering and within the computer science industry.

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Although it is often thought that success within the mathematics subject area is entirely dependent on the ability to perform advanced calculations, it is imperative that students are supported to develop their mathematical literacy, with knowledge of mathematical vocabulary and an ability to abstract understanding from complex exam questions. To facilitate this, students are regularly exposed to advanced vocabulary within verbal reasoning and application tasks.

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The curriculum is broken into the following themes:

• Number

• Algebra

• Ratio, Proportion and Rates of change

• Representing Data / Statistics

• Geometry and Measure

• Probability and Sets

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In order to support the delivery of the curriculum, students will have access to a variety of online resources, including Hegarty Maths, MyMaths and TT Rockstar’s. Students are given homework tasks weekly that are designed to support students perfect their exam skills to ensure that as many marks as possible are achieved in all forms of exam questions.

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Exam Board Information

Questions from all 6 themes can appear on any of the three exams.

AQA GCSE Mathematics (9 – 1) 8300

Paper 1- (Non Calculator Paper): 90 Minutes : 80 marks available

Paper 2 (Calculator Paper): 90 Minutes: 80 Marks Available

Paper 3 (Calculator Paper): 90 Minutes: 80 Marks Available

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Further Study Options

• A Level Mathematics

• A Level Further Mathematics

• A Level Applied Mathematics

Being successful within the mathematics subject area will also provide beneficial for the following academic and vocational study options

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• A Level Physics / Chemistry / Biology

• A Level / BTEC Computer Science

• A Level Economics

• A Level / BTEC Finance and Accounting

• A Level / BTEC Engineering

Further to this, many apprenticeships and employment based training course require at least a GCSE level 4 in Maths, and with the increasing demand for paid training placements, a GCSE level 5 is always considered an advantage.

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Careers