It is the goal of the Mathematics Department that we:
- Reflect compassion in our dealings with students and staff in order to promote the dignity of each person.
- Promote an environment in our class rooms where students feel a sense of belonging, and a sense of control and responsibility for their learning.
- Help develop in our students the ability to think critically, objectively and creatively.
- Provide our students with the necessary skills, or give them a foundation which can be built on, to solve mathematically based problems they may encounter now, and later in their lives.
- Adequately prepare our students for the further study of mathematics by making sure that we follow programs and that the programs cover all BOS syllabus outcomes and content.
- Encourage our students to value learning. In order to do this we would like each student to reach their potential in the following areas:
- Mastering basic facts and operating confidently with numbers and algebraic terms.
- Develop a positive attitude towards their work and self image.
- Be able to read and understand a question, and be able to solve a problem and express the answer in a way which could be understood by others.
- Be able to develop thinking strategies which would enable them to solve problems in unfamiliar situations.
- Be able to develop a creative and imaginative approach to their mathematics.
Courses Offered
The Board of Studies has written each course in stages as a two year course with the exception of Extension 2 Mathematics which is a one year course. The courses offered at our school are:
| Stage 4 | Year 7 and Year 8 Mathematics | |
| Stage 5 | Year 9 and Year 10 Mathematics |
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| Stage 6 | Year 11 and Year 12 Mathematics |
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The new Stage 4 Course, published in October 2002 is studied by students in Years 7 and 8.
In Stage 5 the students are placed in one of the three pathways offered. These pathways are graded, 5.1 being the least difficult and 5.3 being the most difficult.
The students following the 5.2 pathway must complete the content of both the 5.1 and 5.2 pathways. Similarly, the students following the 5.3 pathway must complete all of the content of the 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 pathways.
The structure of this course also enables students to study appropriate parts of different pathways; in fact the syllabus indicates which 5.3 topics a student following the 5.2 pathway would need to complete to prepare them fully for the Mathematics Course (2 Unit) in Stage 6.
General Mathematics is an applied mathematics course covering in more detail areas such as Algebraic Modeling, Financial Mathematics, Measurement, Statistics and Probability.
Mathematics and Extension 1 cover the more traditional areas of maths with Extension 1 being more difficult and covering all of the Mathematics topics as well as some additional topics.
Extension 2 is an extra, more difficult extension, to the Extension 1 Course. It has no Preliminary component and is not started until the beginning of the HSC Course (during Term 4, Year 11).