Head of Faculty
Mr L Johnston (w.johnston@temac.co.uk)
Due to the impact of Covid-19, we have implemented a recovery curriculum for certain year groups. For Year 8, we have allowed some extra time for consolidation before advancing along our carefully sequenced journey. Year 9 and year 10 have accessed a six-week transitional scheme of learning to ensure that they are fully prepared and ready for their journey approaching GCSE.
Curriculum Vision
At the East Manchester Academy our vision is ‘to equip all students with the skills, abilities, attributes and qualifications to pursue a fulfilling career, contribute positively to their communities and be active, global citizens’. Mathematics and its wider applications are integral in any developing society – it is, therefore, our social responsibility to help our students understand the world around them. As a faculty, we strive to promote the love of mathematics and enable students to have the confidence to participate, achieve and thrive within the wider community. We will achieve this by providing a coherent, cohesive and relevant journey through: arithmetic, algebra, geometry and applied mathematics. All students will be given an equal opportunity to learn mathematics with a personalised approach offered to each. Students will gain real-life appreciation through lesson planning, strong links to careers and enrichment.
Curriculum Overview
At the East Manchester Academy, we are designing our own curriculum guided by the principles of mastery. We have broken the curriculum content down into four areas of maths. Each area has been divided into topics and each topic has been sequenced coherently into key concepts.
Arithmetic -> Algebra -> Geometry -> Applied maths
Studying the areas of mathematics in this order allows for deeper, enduring connections to be made within closely related topics. Historically, spiral curricula encourage the uncoordinated and unannounced leaping between the areas of maths. As a result, it is difficult for students to build their schema and difficult for teachers to engineer one. This leads to the ‘having to reteach from scratch’ scenario because the students did not retain that knowledge in their long-term memory.
Algebra is the generalisation of the rules learnt in arithmetic. Why do we rush students to advance into algebra when they have not mastered the fundamentals?
Geometry is essentially formulae manipulation. If students are not confident rearranging algebraically then why delve into this area prematurely?
Applied mathematics should be taught last in order to draw a clear distinction between pure and applied maths. It is my hope that drawing this line clearly will better equip future generations to separate fact from fiction across any media platform.
The pupils will be embarking on a carefully planned journey through the world of secondary mathematics at a cautious pace so that vital ideas are processed properly and understood deeply. We have estimated that this journey will take approximately four years leaving plenty of time to address any areas of improvement in year 11. Our goal is that all year 11 pupils will understand, value and enjoy maths.