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Since the inauguration of ISB, teachers from Early Learning, elementary and secondary school levels have worked towards developing a balanced mathematics curriculum which emphasizes foundational skills and processes, builds deep mathematical understandings and helps students to apply maths in powerful problem-solving experiences. The intellectually stimulating curriculum in which mathematics is taught both as a system of logic and as a body of competencies incorporates flexibility and creativity without neglecting our School’s duty to prepare our students for further study in their home countries or elsewhere. We recognize the individual nature and needs of each of our students and endeavour to meet these needs within the structure of the normal classroom setting. Hence students are treated individually within the guidelines of the total classroom and curriculum intentions.
The introduction in 2005 of the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE - end of grade 10 exam) and the Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE - AS levels examined in 2006 at the end of grade 11 and A levels examined in 2007 at the end of grade 12) and the International Baccalaureate (IB) for year 11 and 12 students from 2006, has seen considerable beneficial development in our Maths curriculum. University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) and IB recommended texts are utilised respectively with these Maths classes. Furthermore, ISB has adopted components of the International Primary Curriculum (IPC). When IPC units are taught in the elementary school they augment the more formal stucture of our curricula, including Maths, that also provides for the larger purposes of schooling related to the development of skills, reasoning tools, and the personal capacities to enjoy and appreciate mathematics.
Each of our students should leave ISB equipped with the abilities to use maths structures in their everyday lives. This includes using information and communication technologies, interactive software and calculators (also graphic display calculators which are encouraged from grade 8 onwards) to explore and work with mathematics while developing our students' abilities to handle data critically. As students identify relationships between maths concepts and everyday situations, thus making connections between maths and other subjects, they gain the ability to use maths to extend and apply their knowledge in curriculum areas such as science, music and language.
Drawing upon constructivist pedagogy at ISB we view learning mathematics as an engaging and necessarily active process. Students construct mathematical meaning through interaction with the ideas they hold and the possible alternative conceptions held by others. We believe it is important that our learners have their ideas challenged by experiences and interactions thus encouraging them to take risks, persevere, experiment and reflect both independently and collaboratively, while appreciating that making and recognising mistakes can be an important part of their learning.
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