Mathematics at Ffynone House School in Swansea

 Mathematics in Ffynone

The Ffynone House School Mathematics Department comprises two full time maths teachers and aims to provide courses in mathematics that are designed to meet the needs and abilities of every pupil.  At present, both members of staff teach a mixture of high and low ability groups throughout the age range.  Every effort is made to ensure that pupils keep the same teacher for the GCSE years 10 and 11.

The spread of ability is manifest in all year groups despite pupils being allocated to one of two sets.  The average class size is around 12 pupils, which naturally enables very close attention to be paid to individual needs.  Every pupil is issued with an appropriate textbook that closely supports the scheme of work for any year.  Our current scheme is linked to the STP series of textbooks published by Nelson Thornes alongside the Edexcel Examination Board's own publications for GCSE.

The great emphasis on non-calculator mathematics in key stages 3 and 4 examinations make it essential that such activities are practised frequently throughout all year groups.  Calculators are only used when other paper methods are impractical due to the complexity of a calculation or if it detracts from the main lesson objective.

Additional Mathematics

For those pupils who particularly enjoy maths or wish to study it at AS-level or beyond, a course in additional maths is available in one of the optional 'lines' for key stage 4.  This means that the standard four lessons each week will be supplemented with a further three lessons to study the extra material in parallel with GCSE.

The course title is 'A Free Standing Mathematics Qualification in Additional Maths' (FSMQ) and is offered by the OCR examination board.  It provides candidates with an introduction to the mathematics studied in AS and A Level GCE modules and it carries UCAS points.

GCSE Statistics has recently been added as an extra curricular option.

Mathematics at AS and A Level

Our sixth form has the opportunity to study mathematics at AS and A level in pure mathematics, mechanics and statistics and currently follow the WJEC examination specifications.  Lessons are tutorial in nature with small groups of around three or four students being commonplace.  Such close supervision has led to outstanding success at A-level in recent years and is expected to continue in the future.

To stimulate an interest in mathematics beyond the normal classroom situation many pupils are encouraged to enter the UK Mathematics Challenge competitions at junior, intermediate and senior levels.   Such external challenges frequently enable pupils to demonstrate their mathematical knowledge in the less intimidating multiple-choice style of questions and numerous pupils are regularly awarded bronze and silver commendations.

Several pupils have also benefitted from the Royal Institution Mathematics Master classes for Young People run by the University of Glamorgan.  These popular courses show how maths is relevant to a wide variety of careers and applications and enables budding mathematicians to mix with like-minded peers.