Guildford Park Secondary 22-23
OUR CONTEXT
OUR LEARNERS
Numeracy is a fundamental life skill. It is important for individuals to develop logical thinking and reasoning strategies in their everyday activities. We need numeracy to solve problems and make sense of numbers, time, patterns, and shapes for activities like cooking, reading receipts, reading instructions, and even playing sport. Rapidly growing technological advances are making the need for numeracy skills more critical within the workplace. With more employees engaging in more sophisticated tasks, numeracy is recognized as an essential employability skill.
Evidence of our learner's strengths and competencies are referenced below.
Our students can…
- Use reasoning and logic to explore, analyze, and apply mathematical ideas
- Connect mathematical concepts to each other and to other areas and personal interests
- Develop, demonstrate, and apply mathematical understanding through play, inquiry, and problem solving.
Carpentry students making a step-by-step plan, carrying it out, and making changes as needed. Students also have to think critically in their identification and use of appropriate tools, technologies, materials, and processes.
Our Chef Coop students practicing demonstrating Culinary Math. This is a broad descriptor for the fractions, multiplication, addition, subtraction, and conversions needed to be fluent and fast in a kitchen. Some of math concepts used while trying to follow a recipe: Ingredients must be measured and scaled accurately, food production quantities are calculated, and recipes are increased or decreased to scale based on demand .
Drafting students making GP proud! In architecture drafting, a solid math foundation ensures that designs are accurate, functional, and proportionally correct .
OUR FOCUS
Every day in our school, students are exposed to a variety of learning experiences in all curricular areas. Among the skills taught and practiced, building strong numeracy skills is our current focus. Students use numeracy daily in all areas of their lives. Their confidence and ability with numbers will have an impact on them financially, socially, emotionally, physically, and professionally. Building strong numeracy skills is fundamental to participation in our world today.
Our student learning goal as it relates to numeracy includes:
- Develop, demonstrate, and apply mathematical understanding through play, inquiry, and problem solving.
All teachers, across all grade levels, provide rich and varied opportunities for students to improve in numeracy development. These opportunities, supported by explicit strategies and resources, are aimed at increasing the ability to use math for a range of real-life purposes. To this end, students will have increased time at
- Practicing foundational math (times tables, decimals, fractions, percents)
- Using logic and patterns to solve puzzles and play games
- Visualizing mathematical concepts
- Using mathematical vocabulary and language in mathematical discussions
- Connecting mathematical concepts to other areas and personal interests
To highlight successes and assist in the determining of potential learning gaps, we monitored a cohort of grade 8 students in relation to success in meeting the above goal.
OUR NEXT STEPS
Evidence of our students' learning demonstrates that our numeracy focus is positively impacting our cohort of learners. When surveyed and asked to communicate their students' progress , teachers indicated that .... students indicated that...
Surrey Schools
Formed in 1906, the Surrey School District currently has the largest student enrolment in British Columbia and is one of the few growing districts in the province. It is governed by a publicly elected board of seven trustees.
The district serves the cities of Surrey and White Rock and the rural area of Barnston Island.
