This week, our Bethany School blog has been written by Mr Manktelow, Head of Mathematics. He celebrates the progress that Year 11 pupils have made and the importance of revision and practice.Back in November 2021 I wrote about marginal gains, the idea of improving small things that culminate in large scale change and the power of deliberate purposeful practice to aid improvement.

This week I wanted to share and celebrate the practice and progress that Year 11 have made. This time last year they were sitting their trial examinations as Year 10 pupils, and today many of them have achieved or even surpassed their IGCSE Mathematics target grade.

In the Mathematics Department we offer the opportunity to sit their IGCSE early, in the first week of January, (this is moving to November from next year). For many this offers the opportunity to have banked a grade before moving onto the Higher Tier, or even the OCR Additional Maths qualification. While for others it is the chance for pupils to get one of their subjects out the way and allow them to concentrate on other subjects.

Across the ability scale there were some incredible results, Alice Colman, Sam Denny, Andrew Ho, Matthew Kiddell, Jonathan Lam, Kim Lung, Archie MacDonald, Alex Matthews, Lucy Shaw and Ben Ucer all achieved fantastic grades, while Valeria Maier, James Candeloro and Fifi Charles also achieved well above their target grades. Tom Sutton, Ben Nicholson, Holly McClure and Rory Skinner also all performed well.

I also wanted to highlight the deliberate practice that took place in order to make these results achievable and to set a challenge to the current Year 10 pupils to try and better this. Last year, Fifi Charles improved by 43 marks from her Year 10 examination in March to her IGCSE examination in January, completing an incredible 3581 practice questions on Dr Frost along the way. This year, there have been a number of pupils have completed a huge amount of targeted practice and this has paid off. There are other ways to revise and practice, and Dr Frost isn’t for every pupil but there is definite evidence that purposeful practice does make perfect!

Mr Manktelow
Head of Mathematics