Speed no sin in class

By Sandra Siagian.

THESE Marist College students at Penshurst may be young but they are ready to skip a few grades to tackle year 10 maths.

After speeding through their year 7 maths syllabus last year, teacher Anne Bishop decided to move them into an accelerated class.

“I first noticed some of their abilities in term two last year and monitored them across 2010,” Mrs Bishop said.

“They sat a year 8 exam which had content they had not seen before, and scored an above-average mark of 80 per cent.”

This is not the first time Mrs Bishop has put students into an accelerated program.

Nine years ago she came across a similar set of children with ability and moved them into a separate class.

If all goes to plan, the four year 8 and one year 9 students will sit the School Certificate this year and then sit the preliminary HSC year 11 exam for maths in 2012.

“It is not often we get children of this calibre,” Mrs Bishop said.

“We feel comfortable to put them through this program, as they were restless in their normal classes.”

Instead of sitting in their regular maths class, the five students take part in seven classes during two weeks.

Five of the classes are in school hours and two are before and after school.

“We have given parents a guideline of what they will be following,” Mrs Bishop said.

“If they do crash and burn we will return them to the normal workload, but for now they look to be handling it quite well.”

Year 8 student Antonio Gorgijovski said he preferred learning the different material