TORONTO – Math is essential – but some Toronto schools aren’t able to meet provincial standards.
“It’s kind of hard for me, sometimes, that’s why I haven’t enjoyed it sometimes, but I am enjoying it now,” said Mia Seymour, a Grade 9 student at Malvern Collegiate Institute.
EQAO results released Wednesday showed school districts across the GTA had Academic Math results similar to the provincial average.
Across Ontario 85 per cent of Grade 9 students achieved the provincial standard.
But things were not as positive for Applied Math students where just 47 per cent of students across Ontario met the standard. Only 34 per cent of Toronto students in applied math met the standard.
Of course, average numbers don’t tell the whole story – within each district there are dramatic differences.
Among the top schools in the Toronto District was Malvern Collegiate Institute in the Beaches, where 83 per cent of students met or exceeded the standard.
Among the less successful schools was Downsview Secondary School, where only 49 per cent of Academic Math students made the grade.
Similarly in Applied Math, 54 per cent of Malvern students did well, compared to 17% at Downsview.
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“It was kind of hard. I didn’t really understand none of the questions, it was pretty hard,” said Downsview student Nawal Mohamed of the test.
The principal said the administration is addressing the shortfall but many students in the school have extra challenges to overcome.
“Roughly one third of my students would be identified with special educational needs. There are another third who have been identified as being English language learners or new to the country,” said Maria Palermo.
“Our students are equally as capable as students in other places. If we’re falling below, we need to figure out why. One of the things we know is that math tends to intimidate and so we’ve looked at ways to make our math classrooms more friendly. ”
They are also trying to improve at Malvern C.I. despite their success.
“We’ve really taken a focus on problem solving and building on foundations like numeracy skills.” said math teacher Elizabeth Barsby.
Barsby explained they do a lot of hands on activities which give the students context and try to relate math to the real world as much as possible.
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