Meet Jane Rogers
“The profile of Core Maths as a useful and enjoyable subject seems to have developed nicely with our latest cohort, with several students joining late after promotion by other students on the course.”
Jane Rogers
Chosen Hill School
About Chosen Hill School
Chosen Hill School is a 11-18 single academy trust in Gloucester, with a comprehensive intake. Our cohort is gathered from a wide area around Gloucester and Cheltenham.
We have a long history of teaching A level Mathematics and Further Mathematics within our well-established sixth form that offers a wide range of courses. Core Maths has been recently added to our range of courses, and is now in its third year of delivery.
What they’re doing in relation to Core Maths
Core Maths was introduced at Chosen Hill School in 2019-20 and is delivered over two years with an allocation of four hours per fortnight of lesson provision, along with personal study time. Many of the students who opt to take the course are studying Geography, Sciences, and Social Sciences, as well as some taking IT and Business. The heavy emphasis on subjects requiring statistical input has led us to follow the AQA Mathematical Studies A option to support this.
There has been one cohort, of seven students, that completed the course in 2021 (although with Teacher Assessed Grades, rather than via examination). In one case, the addition of Core Maths to their list of subjects meant that they received a lower offer (by one grade) when applying to university for their chosen course, if they achieved a grade C in Core Maths. This has certainly been a selling point when discussing options with Year 11 students.
Take-up of the course has been growing gradually. In 2020-21, students taking Applied Science were required to take Core Maths. This increased our numbers significantly, meaning we could have two classes running, of approximately thirteen students each. However, this didn’t lead to students following the course with investment and enjoyment, meaning that we had quite a few drop-outs between Years 12 and 13. Consequently, this experiment was not repeated in 2021-22 and we now have two classes of six-eight students each. The profile of Core Maths as a useful and enjoyable subject seems to have developed nicely with the latest cohort, with several students joining late after promotion by other students on the course as well as some moving over from the A level Mathematics classes.
We hope to promote the subject more actively with Year 11 students for our 2022-23 cohort. With added encouragement from teachers of subjects that benefit from extra mathematical input, we hope to significantly increase the profile of Core Maths with our students.