Mathematics at ISOCS

ISOCS is proud to be leading the way in best practices in mathematics teaching and learning.

We receive many inquiries about leading mathematics initiatives, from other International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (IBPYP) schools in Switzerland and worldwide!

As expert PYP educators our founding team carefully researched how best we can meet the IBPYP’s commitment to a developmental and student-specific teaching methodology.

Hosting ground-breaking mathematics courses for teachers in 2009 and 2011 (First Steps in Mathematics) brought us all to the uncomfortable realization that teaching content to an imagined grade “norm” was failing the majority of students! It was asserted that a staggering 80% of students developed huge deficits in mathematical understanding at various stages between primary and secondary education due to a race to cover content, a lack of teacher confidence and an over-reliance on copying a process without understanding the mathematical concept behind it.

At ISOCS we are all committed and specifically trained to help every student become a confident mathematician.

ISOCS fully embraces the idea that mathematics is learned and applied in the real world, and that as such unique individuals, we all develop our critical thinking at different rates and in varied ways.

It makes sense to us, therefore, that we continually assess student’s current balance of understanding and naturally occurring misunderstandings to determine where we need to re-teach, consolidate, practice, apply or extend.

We track individual student development in mathematics on the IBPYP scope and sequence which is applicable and transferable to IB schools worldwide.

Student’s personal development in the various mathematics focuses are assessed through diagnostic tasks; addressed through interesting challenges at different levels of complexity and assessed in the student’s ability to apply the idea independently in real life.

Mathematics is contextual and therefore we plan our mathematical teaching based on the relevant real life applications in our IBPYP Programme of Inquiry. For example measurement was an ideal focus for a Unit of Inquiry on Energy and data handling played a meaningful role in us comparing and contrasting cultural traditions in our Celebrations unit.

Contact us at office@internationalschoolswitzerland.ch for the IB PYP based mathematics curriculum or visit us to see inspiring examples of our students mastering mathematical thinking!