REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2007-2008 - Pershore High School

MathematicsReport by Debbie Morgan, Head of DepartmentThe Mathematics Department continues to work hard to improve teaching and learning and we haveachieved some very good results over the last year.At Key Stage 3 in 2007 89% of studentsachieved Level 5 or above, a furtherimprovement on last year and wellbeyond our target. An impressive 36%of students also achieved a Level 7 orhigher, which is testament to thestrength of teaching in the departmentat Key Stage 3. It was particularlypleasing again this year to see so manystudents improving by three levels fromKey Stage 2, with 42 students achievingthis.The performance at GCSE in 2007 sawa pleasing rise in our results from theprevious two years, suggesting that allthe efforts we have made to helpstudents prepare effectively for theexaminations have been working.Student using the interactive whiteboard during a Maths lessonWe achieved 61% A* to C which was just 1% below our target and a rise of 4% from last year.Students were given plenty of opportunities to improve their grades in the run-up to examinations withfour extra revision classes a week, a Masterclass by the AQA Chief Examiner and their own revisionpack of examination papers. We will continue to do all we can in our free time to give students asmuch support as possible prior to their examinations and hopefully we can maintain this improvement.The department continues to be highly successful at A2, with an outstanding set of results in 2007.Out of the 10 students who continued to A2, six of them achieved a grade A and two achieved a gradeB. We also had two students who took Further Mathematics and they achieved an A and a B. In sucha difficult subject these results are extremely impressive and the students deserved to do so wellbecause they worked incredibly hard and showed great commitment throughout the year.This year's Intermediate Maths Challenge saw Andrew Oxley win the Best in School certificate and ouronly Gold Award. There were also Silver certificates for Scott Spalding, Georgina Thornton, CharlotteRuff, Victoria Eden, Curtis Smith and Amy Button. Molly Browne, Tessa Deakin, Nathan Comber,Fiona Hartley, Abigail Jones, Cameron Dean, William Neal, Mark Carey, Francesca Gordon, RebeccaDawkes, Rebecca East and Laura Higgins all achieved a Bronze certificate. Thanks to all thestudents who took part, and well done to those who did so well in achieving an award.Students at Pershore High School are very lucky to have excellent access to resources from home.We have subscribed to the Mymaths website in which students and parents can use to aid revision,find help on any topic and improve their numeracy skills with lots of fun games. All students haveaccess to MyPHS where they can findplenty of resources and importantinformation in the Mathematics section.For those who do not have access to theInternet at home, we always havesupplies of revision guides andworkbooks too. We will continue to workhard in providing every student with theskills and tools they need to succeed inMathematics - the rest is up to them.Maths Masterclass