September Math Newsletter

Dear Grade 9 students and parents,

I hope you had a very nice Summer break and students are ready for a long difficult year.

My name is Mr Bill and I will be Grade 9 Math teacher this year . I have been teaching Math for 17 years and last 6 years I have been in HJIS community. I am very happy to be here and I am planning to work here as much as I can. I am married with 3 children and live around the school. In the first week of every month, I will try to write in the blogs and give you information about what we are doing in the class.

This year Grade 9 students will start IGCSE program in math class.  We follow Oxford Publication IGCSE Math text book. We plan to finish 75 % of the entire topics to have more time for practice next year.

First week as a warm up, we will start basic number skills,  ratio and percentages. I will send whole year plan later via email.

Now, I want to explain some important issues and procedures in my classroom.

1. IGCSE Test:

IGCSE is a-two-years-program. Next year May, they will take the IGCSE test. This test has two options; Core and Extended. Depending on students'math level we recommend to chose the proper one. I will discuss this situation with the students.

2. Jupiter:

Our school use the Jupiter grading system as you know. I will post my Homework, grading and behavior situation on Jupiter. I may write emails via Jupiter as well.

 3. Grading scale and Homework: 

In my Math class, my grading scale is given below:

Unit Test             :  35%

Term Test            :  30%

Homework           :  20%

Quiz-Project        :  15%

After I finish one of the major subjects, I will give a unit test about the topic. It will not only measure them how much they could learn the topic but also it will be a good review about the topic.

At the end of each term, we have only one term test. It is going to be taken in one of the last weeks of each term. In this test, I will ask questions about all topics that they cover within that term. Only the last term has a different situation. In that test, I will ask questions from all over the year's topics. So they should remember all of the subjects.

Homework is one the most important issues that help student understand and solve questions easily. They have HW almost after every math class. In addition, I will give them some big projects that will be done with a group or individually .

  

4. Notebook: 

Notebook is very important for Secondary Math Classes. It is important that they keep the notes very neatly to have review later. To organize and write whole year's topics, they need a big A4 size square grid notebook. I definitely don't want them to use a small notebook and then they change their notebooks very frequently. 

They can buy a notebook themselves from a stationary or internet. Otherwise our school buy ASKUL notebooks as you see in the picture. It is 400 yen and students can buy it any time from me.

       5. Calculator:

      Scientific Calculator is a must in IGCSE program. Many questions depend on the calculator. They can buy and use any scientific one. But in class, we use Sharp EL-509 model

     
           www.amazon.co.jp



If you have any questions, feel free to contact me any time.

Best Regards