Training The Mind Everyday, Anytime And Anywhere – Sparx Maths Homework Approach
One of the common quotes is by a German-American physicist Albert Einstein, “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of mind to think.” What do you think of when you think about learning mathematics? Most people tend to think about hard work and practice, practice, practice. Yes it is! Sparx Mathematics Homework develops deep mathematical thinking skills and prepares our Learners to be strong problem solvers.
Engaging young people with any homework can be tough, let alone tackling maths. Sparx Mathematics Homework Program allows parents to be involved in their child’s maths learning journey.
How does Sparx work?
Compulsory
Students must correctly answer all of these questions before your hand-in deadline.
Optional
Students can choose whether or not to do this. It’s only half as long as their Compulsory homework but is great for helping them feel more confident with everything learnt in maths.
Target
Students can choose whether or not to do this. It contains up to 6 questions and will advance your maths skills even further. It is slightly trickier than Compulsory and Optional homework.
Unique content covering the KS3 and GCSE maths curriculum. Over 33,000 handwritten questions are supported by more than 7,800 tutorial videos, which help explain concepts and encourage independent learning.
Sparx’ intuitive, adaptive technology creates an individual learner profile and delivers bespoke homework for each student, which is designed to be challenging yet achievable. This personalised homework is set and marked automatically, providing instant feedback to students and helping them to progress quicker. Homework matches the curriculum and appropriate extension work is always available for those who want to challenge themselves.
Sparx Homework learns where students’ strengths and weaknesses lie, and how long they take to complete different types of questions. It then determines which homework questions would help improve and consolidate their learning. Question difficulty is gradually increased to suit the learner and topics are repeated during the year to help them fully understand the skill for the long term.
Progress in core subjects such as mathematics has a recognized effect on overall attainment. Tackling issues such as ‘maths anxiety’ and rewarding progress for all students creates confidence that is evidenced at end of Term or Year tests and Exam results.
Keep your child motivated
Students collect XP (experience points) and are rewarded with mini-games. This energizes, directs and sustains behavior. Because it involves goals and requires activity. Goals provide the impetus for and the direction of action, while action entails effort and persistence in order to complete their homework.
Hebert Tapfuma
Mathematics Department / Sparx Leader
Winning At Maths
I am going to give you some advice on how you can revise with your child at home, improve their confidence in the subject and encourage them to want to learn:
- Make the exercise hands-on, place things in front of your child to help them see and feel the problem.
- Make use of Mathletics – this is a fun, engaging way for your child to practice work learnt, at home.
- Ask your child to explain how they got to their answer. They will recall information and you will understand their thought process.
- Ask questions daily when you aren’t doing extra work, such as “what’s the time?” or “How many bananas would we need to buy if each person got 3?” – This will help your child relate Math’s to real life problems.
- Mistakes are good! It is a learning curve for your child.
Allow
Thinking to
Happen
Things the Year 6’s suggested that help them learn:
- Constantly practicing
- Having someone sit down with them and going over what they don’t understand
- Using blocks
- Working in a group
- Asking questions
- When work is explained using games
- Correcting their mistakes
- Motivation
“Mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations, or algorithms. Mathematics is about understanding.” — William Paul Thurston
Brittney Hakime
Year 6 Teacher
Our Year Two Learners Started Off The Year With A Sweet Taste!
I was very impressed by some of the healthy choices and reasons behind their favourite foods.
Thabelo Magoro chose fruit for his presentation because “it helps you to grow and run fast” and came to class with lovely fruit kebabs which he handed out.
Sachin Gramoney thoroughly enjoys his grans dish because “it’s tasty and I like the cheese with the roti”.
Zach Gouws chose pizza as it is an Italian dish and his family is Italian and because “I like to put hot sauce on my pizza”
Tyler decided on banana bread because “it is nice to eat, the taste isn’t salty and I like it for breakfast”.
Joshua Gamanya chose steak and burgers because “it has BBQ sauce, burgers have lettuce on it and because I love meat”.
Willow Camara came with two lovely bananas and explained to the class that she loves them because “it has Vitamin B and C, it is very healthy and I can gum it”.
Khalid Al-Anazi came with a very interesting fruit called a mandarin and explained that “it is good for your heart”.
We had many other favourite foods and dishes which the learners went the extra mile to present to the class. Overall, a happy class and a proud teacher.
I look forward to our next “show and Tell” with 2EH.
Erin Hierse
Year 2 Teacher
Integrating English and Design Technology in Year 1
In English lessons the Year 1 students have been reading stories about Bear, Dragon and Hedgehog. They have read and then acted out the stories. One of the stories was called, “What shall we make?” and the characters made a robot.
We decided that it would be fun to make puppets in Design and Technology, so the students could make up their own stories and perform a puppet show for their class. The students were given a small paper bag and two eyes, and then they had to use their imaginations to create their own puppets.
When the puppets we all enjoyed the puppet show.
Ann Cordner
Year 1 Teacher
From the Principal’s Desk, 7 February 2020
Dear Parents
Schools, like all other institutions, often face challenges. I was reminded of this during the week when a water pipe was accidentally cut during the renovations to the downstairs bathrooms. Luckily, this was easily and quickly repaired, but not before the, already busy, bathrooms on the first floor flooded and we ended up escorting students to the bathrooms in the admin block.
Crisis management is often part of a normal school day and this is when everyone has an opportunity to step forward and assist. This is our school and we want to create a culture of pride and excellence! This requires that we all pick up litter, maintain parts of the garden and report faulty equipment in the building. If we all work together, we can most certainly do better!
Our school community is of central importance and anything which could be potentially harmful to our students needs to dealt with in an open and honest manner. Over the past two weeks, management has met with various year groups and their parents to discuss potential technological threats affecting our students.
In the light of this, management has contacted the Digital Law Company and we are happy to let you know that Emma Sadlier will address our school community next Thursday, 13th February. Please visit the Quicket website and book your seats. Her talk is applicable to students between the ages of 12-18 as she will be addressing the current trends on social media and the dangers parents need to be aware of. We look forward to seeing you all at the talk next Thursday.
Have a lovely weekend.
Regards
Edna
SRC Portfolios 2020
The following students have been entrusted with the responsibility of the following portfolios:
The leader in charge of discipline should have an interest in the disciplining of
students and should have a broad knowledge of the school rules concerning
the discipline which includes the demerit and detention system.
Khanyisa Buthelezi- Culture
The leader in charge of Spirit & Culture will assist the Marketing team at Blouberg
International School. The Marketing leader should be outgoing, have good
interpersonal skills and be comfortable in adult company.
Alex Massyn- Sport
The leader in charge of sport should have an interest in sports and a broad
knowledge of the sporting calendar of the school, as well as the allied Extra-Mural
activities.
Audrey Lepo & Venus Chamunorwa- Student Welfare
The leader in charge of student welfare should have an interest in the health and safety of students to ensure their well being, comfort, and safety at Blouberg International. This includes the emotional well-being of students.
Katherine Lott- Secretary & Treasurer & Interact
The Secretary & Treasurer shall:
- record the minutes of all meetings;
- make a copy available of such minutes to the SRC coordinator who will, in turn, make available to the Principal.
- Ensure and keep a record of expenditures and profit of the SRC.
- Ensure that the expenditure of the SRC is utilized within the approved SRC
budget.
The leader in charge of Interact will work closely with the teacher(s) in charge of Interact to ensure a meaningful experience for the students at Blouberg International School.
Carmen de Villiers
High School Teacher
Exploring Our World
The Year 4’s have had an exciting first 3 weeks of school. We’ve started with an interesting topic in Science: Habitats.
We’ve learned some new scientific terminology such as habitat, micro habitats and adaptations. Last week we got the chance to practically apply our knowledge by exploring the school’s garden. We found loads of animals and insects such as doves, swallows, beetles, butterflies, ants, moths and spiders! Once back in class, we had to draw the habitats and list all the animals we found.
Mrs Schoots also spoke about her class’s pet rats and how they are adapted to live in a cage and what makes them different from rats living in nature. It really helped us to understand how some animals might be able to survive in more than one habitat. We will continue with this topic for the next few weeks.
We are so blessed to live in a country with such a vast variety of animals and plants. It is important that we respect these animals and their habitats – no matter how small they are!
“Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.” –George Eliot
Ria du Plessis
Year 4 Teacher
Nursery Fun 2020
The Nursery has started to settle in well in their first term.
They have settled into the routine and during the day they have a nutritious breakfast and all the yummy snacks and lunch provided by the school. They also get to have nice long restorative naps.
They have a nice shade over the garden and can spend most of the day outside in the fresh air. They are making new friends and learning so many interesting things about the class topic this week. The topic for the week is Family and the little ones love talking about their families and painting and drawing them.
The Nursery had immense fun playing with all the Sensory toys. They had a great time touching the sand, water and small creatures. They also liked playing with the macaroni and little dinosaurs.
I look forward to seeing how the little ones in our Nursery develop this term.
Jacky Billings
Nursery Teacher
From the Principal’s Desk, 30 January 2020
Dear Parents
We had a lovely movie evening at school last Friday and I am certain that everyone who attended will agree that it was great family fun! Family is important and it was wonderful to spend time with our extended Blouberg family. We look forward to more of these gatherings in the future and appreciate your support in attending them.
We held our Foundation and Key stage 1 parent meetings last Thursday and tonight we have our Key Stage 2 parent information evening. I urge parents to communicate with teachers and make use of the Engage system to retrieve key information. Communication is key to good relationship!
We will be starting renovations to the girls’ bathrooms on the ground floor on Friday 31st January and again, we ask you to please remind the students to use the bathrooms on the first floor. We are looking forward to the fresh revamp!
Social media and its impact on our teenagers and young children remains a huge concern to educators and parents alike. We are in the process of finalizing a date to have Emma Sadler from the Digital Law Company address parents, and students who are 18 years of age. The dates will be made available as soon as possible and I urge every parent to join us on the evening.
I wish you all a wonderful weekend of family time.
Regards
Edna
The President’s Award
We are delighted to announce our partnership with The President’s Award for Youth Empowerment (TPA). Blouberg International School will register all the Year 8 students of 2020 for the Bronze level of the President’s Award programme.
The Award offers young people skills, experience and a credible reference with evidence that a young person has shown that they are willing to prepare themselves for a purposeful future by investing in their own development. Employers look for skills and experience, but ‘formal education’ is not a substitute for skills and schooling is not a reliable signal of capabilities.’
“The Award develops each individual uniquely with achievements that cannot be measured on paper. It teaches real-life skills like work experience, interpersonal expertise and self-discipline” – Azhar Booley
It is internationally acknowledged that the completion of one or more levels of the Award suggests to an employer or a scholarship adjudicator that the individual has gone beyond the minimum in preparing themselves for the world of work and further learning, providing greater insight into the individual’s character and capacity to achieve in whatever circumstances they find themselves in.
The President’s Award creates opportunities for young people to develop their character, discover their purpose and determine their futures. The Award is designed to reward perseverance and inspire individual action through challenging, but non-competitive activities.
The Award brings together practical experiences and life skills, it builds confidence, encourages physical health and recreation; and motivates young people to engage with their communities.
There are many benefits to doing the Award. The award is gained through individual improvement and achievement, which means that disadvantaged young people and those with special needs are able to participate fully! It’s a process, not a prize. The Award is earned through regular effort, commitment and improvement.
For more information visit: https://presidentsaward.co.za/
Riaan Vosloo
High School Teacher