It’s Maths – But Not as We Knew It!
Have you heard about Hegarty Maths? If you have, then maybe you’d like to know a little more; if you haven’t, then please read on and we will tell you about this fantastic resource. This award-winning online maths programme is now available to all Longhill High School maths students and has been designed to work in parallel to the GCSE maths curriculum. The programme, designed by maths teacher Colin Hegarty, is being used to help students with both their homework and their revision.
The programme works by allowing the student to search for a topic, watch an explanatory video on that topic and then to answer carefully-tailored questions on it. Many students experience that feeling of not quite understanding something in class, but not wanting to be embarrassed by asking for it to be explained again. That’s not a problem with Hegarty Maths, as they can watch the videos as many times as they wish and then have a go at answering the questions related to it. They will be given a second chance to answer if they get a question wrong and answers will be marked right away, which means instant feedback for the student. They can even leave a comment or question online for their teacher to answer.
The Hegarty Maths programme allows the routine and somewhat tedious task of marking to be taken away from the teacher, giving them more time to interact and work with the students. Not only that, but the flexibility of the system allows the teacher to differentiate the work set for individual students, so tailoring it more appropriately for each student according to their ability.
Not only does the programme assist the student, but it can also allow the parent to help their child too. If your son or daughter needs help and you, as a parent, aren’t sure of the answer, then you can watch and understand the video together.
The Hegarty Maths programme was trialled by our Year 11 students last October and was so successful that it has now been rolled out across the school for all maths students in all years. So far, more than 130 hours of extra maths has been undertaken every week!
Teachers are also able to see how long students have spent on their homework or revision and have set up a leader-board in the Maths Faculty; this board indicates which students have spent the most time on the programme and which have answered the most questions correctly; students are then rewarded for their efforts with achievement points.
Maths teacher Miss Wilson summed it up, “It’s like having your very own maths teacher on-hand to help you whenever you’re tackling homework or revision at home.”
