Reservoir District S.C.

Mathematics is a dynamic and integral part of general education and contributes to the individual and the collective development of students, connecting our students' lives with their world.

Mathematics is the manipulation of numbers and the solution of mathematical problems in a wide range of ordinary life and academic situations. Efficacy of maths is achieved by knowing mathematical facts and skills taught sequentially and delivered professionally. Mathematics is a cumulative and sequential subject with each level relying on many concepts taught at previous levels.

The goal of the teachers at Reservoir is to advance mathematical learning. We aim to provide the foundation knowledge and the skills to participate effectively in further school mathematics. We endeavour to have students graduate on schedule with both skills and self-esteem necessary to exercise meaningful options in the areas of work, leisure and interpersonal relationships.

Teachers provide strategies for student engagement at appropriate levels for students to read, write, speak and listen to mathematical texts to facilitate mathematical communication.

Engagement is crucial to success in mathematics.

Teachers at Reservoir identify individual learning needs and target their teaching to those needs. Teachers use accurate and reliable assessment tools that are essential to identify mathematical achievement and to map individual student success. This provides teachers with the necessary information about where to start teaching and how best to scaffold their student mathematical learning. Teachers diagnose student learning problems, implement learning plans, identify students at risk, provide appropriate instruction and endeavour to create inspirational learning environments.

We aim for students to feel mathematically competent and feel they belong to a learning environment.

While the usefulness of Mathematical modelling and problem solving is well known, mathematics also has a fundamental role in enabling cultural, social and technological advances, and empowering individuals as critical citizens in contemporary society and for the future. Number, space and measurement, and chance and data are natural and common aspects of most people’s mathematical experience in everyday personal, study and work situations. Equally important are the essential roles that mathematical structure and working mathematically play in how we understand the natural and human world.

Mathematics can be described in terms of its objects, what they are and how they came to be; its established body of knowledge and why this is held to be true; its effective application in science, technology and other domains; and the practice and activities of mathematicians past and present. (Victorian Essential Learning Standards Mathematics introduction, VCAA 2005)

The curriculum of the school based Mathematics in Victoria is based on the Victorian Essential Learning Standards. The aim for essential learning in school mathematics is for students to:

• Demonstrate useful mathematical and numeracy skills for successful general employment
• Solve practical problems with mathematics, especially industry and work related problems
• Develop specialist knowledge in mathematics that provides for further study
• See mathematical connections and be able to apply mathematical concepts, skills and processes in problem solving
• Be empowered through knowledge of mathematics as a numerate citizen, able to apply this knowledge critically in societal and political contexts
• Develop an understanding of the role of mathematics in life, society and work, the role of mathematics in history, and mathematics as a discipline.