Maths
The Mathematics department of Parkwood Academy is moving upwards and forward, with dedicated members of staff who strive to provide our students with enjoyable and enriching learning experiences.
The department’s results has been improving over the past three years and this has been achieved through a rigorous use of data and personalisation of the students’ learning journey. We encourage our students to achieve and hope that they can make at least three levels of progress from KS2 to KS4. The higher ability students (G&T) are expected to make at least 4 levels of progress over the same period.
- The department’s desire to personalise and encourage students to take charge of their own learning and track their progress is why we use a variety of resources like the mymaths website, i-progress website and the super maths world website. Homework is regularly set and differentiated. Plans are already ongoing in collaboration with the Academy’s community liaison team to enable parents and guardians develop the capacity to help their ward’s with their homework.
As part of our efforts to contextualise the use of mathematics, the department also runs the school’s fantasy league, everyone is encouraged to take part and this enables participants to experience the values of managing resources and budgeting. The department is also a keen and regular participant in the UKMT’s schools’ challenge.
The department also appreciates that a lot of our students can’t afford private tutoring, this is why we run a daily after school intervention session, this is an extra provision that enables students to catch up or receive help with their home work, get extra one to one support from our team of dedicated staff members. We also run extra holiday intervention sessions in the run up to GCSE exams, this program is very popular with the students and usually finishes with a session called the “Super Sunday” event.
We are a department that works very closely with the Universities (University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University) in the city and we are very welcoming to have students from their Students Associate Scheme (SAS) and Teach First Programs have their placement with us. We are also a part of the teaching training program hence trainee teachers have their ITT placement with us.
We are a very dynamic department and offer GCSE Statistics as an option to students who have that desire to further explore an aspect of the Mathematics curriculum.
The team is made up of the following individuals.
Ms Vicky Simcock (Vice Principal Standards)
Mr Munif Zia (Director of Mathematics)
Miss Rachael Callan (Lead Practitioner of Mathematics)
Mr Lawrence Akamalofe
Mr Mark Ludditt
Mr Gregg Henderson
Miss Laura Lee
Miss Mary Li
