Year 7 – 10 Mathematics
Mathematics is a reasoning and creative activity employing abstraction and generalisation to identify, describe and apply patterns and relationships. The symbolic nature of mathematics provides a powerful, precise and concise means of communication.
Mathematical ideas have evolved across all cultures over thousands of years and are constantly developing. Digital technologies facilitate this expansion of ideas, providing access to new tools for continuing mathematical exploration and invention. Mathematics is integral to scientific and technological advances in many fields of endeavour. In addition to its practical applications, the study of mathematics is a valuable pursuit in its own right, providing opportunities for originality, challenge and leisure.
Mathematics in 7–10 provides students with knowledge, skills and understanding in Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics and Probability. It focuses on developing increasingly sophisticated and refined mathematical understanding, fluency, communication, logical reasoning, analytical thought and problem-solving skills. These capabilities enable students to respond to familiar and unfamiliar situations by employing strategies to make informed decisions and solve problems relevant to their further education and everyday lives.
The ability to make informed decisions and to interpret and apply mathematics in a variety of contexts is an essential component of students’ preparation for life in the 21st century. To participate fully in society, students need to develop the capacity to critically evaluate ideas and arguments that involve mathematical concepts or that are presented in mathematical form.
The Mathematics curriculum makes clear the links between the various components of mathematics, as well as the relationship between mathematics and other disciplines. Students learn to apply their mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding in a broad range of contexts beyond the mathematics classroom.
The study of Mathematics provides opportunities for students to appreciate the elegance and power of mathematical reasoning and to apply mathematical understanding creatively and efficiently. The study of the subject enables students to develop a positive self-concept as learners of mathematics, obtain enjoyment from mathematics, and become self-motivated learners through inquiry and active participation in challenging and engaging experiences.
Mathematics Year 11-12
The Mathematics Stage 6 courses are designed to offer opportunities for students to think mathematically through questioning, communicating, reasoning and reflecting. They promote development of 21st-century knowledge, skills, understanding, values and attitudes and provide challenge. Students generalise, find connections, think critically and creatively, using appropriate technology to support mathematical activity.
Standard Mathematics
The Mathematics Standard courses are focused on enabling students to use mathematics effectively, efficiently and critically to make informed decisions in their daily lives. They provide students with the opportunities to develop an understanding of, and competence in, further aspects of mathematics through a large variety of real-world applications for a range of concurrent HSC subjects.
Mathematics Standard 1 is designed to help students improve their numeracy by building their confidence and success in making mathematics meaningful. Numeracy is more than being able to operate with numbers. It requires mathematical knowledge and understanding, mathematical problem-solving skills and literacy skills, as well as positive attitudes. When students become numerate they are able to manage a situation or solve a problem in real contexts, such as everyday life, work or further learning. This course offers students the opportunity to prepare for post-school options of employment or further training.
Mathematics Standard 2 is designed for those students who want to extend their mathematical skills beyond Stage 5 but are not seeking the in-depth knowledge of higher mathematics that the study of calculus would provide. This course offers students the opportunity to prepare for a wide range of educational and employment aspirations, including continuing their studies at a tertiary level.
Advanced and Extension Mathematics
The Mathematics Advanced, Mathematics Extension 1 and Mathematics Extension 2 courses form a continuum to provide opportunities at progressively higher levels for students to acquire knowledge, skills and understanding in relation to concepts within the area of mathematics that have applications in an increasing number of contexts. These concepts and applications are appropriate to the students’ continued experience of mathematics as a coherent, interrelated, interesting and intrinsically valuable study that forms the basis for future learning. The concepts and techniques of differential and integral calculus form a strong basis of the courses, and are developed and used across the courses, through a range of applications and in increasing complexity.
The Mathematics Advanced course is focused on enabling students to appreciate that mathematics is a unique and powerful way of viewing the world to investigate order, relation, pattern, uncertainty and generality. The course provides students with the opportunity to develop ways of thinking in which problems are explored through observation, reflection and reasoning.
The Mathematics Advanced course provides a basis for further studies in disciplines in which mathematics and the skills that constitute thinking mathematically have an important role. It is designed for those students whose future pathways may involve mathematics and its applications in a range of disciplines at the tertiary level.
