Ascot Primary Hosts Math Fair April 29

To help students get a better grasp of Mathematics and to appreciate the subject more, Ascot Primary School, in Portmore, will host its inaugural Math Fair, on Friday, April 29.

The event will borrow the campaign theme of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information’s Education System Transformation Programme, ‘Math Counts’.

Acting Principal of the school, Donna Jarrett, told JIS News that the fair resulted from the need to present, in an exciting way, a subject that some students find difficult.

“We recognise that a number of persons have grown up feeling intimidated by Mathematics. A number of reasons account for this and so we are trying to dispel some of those fears by treating Mathematics differently. So, we want the students to recognise that Mathematics comes in many forms in their daily lives and is also a fun subject and not something to fear,” she said.

Mrs. Jarrett said that the fair is open to other students from surrounding communities, parents as well as community members who have an interest in the subject. It will be held on the school grounds and will begin at 9:00 a.m. and end at 4:00 p.m.

The day will consist of several activities and games prepared by each grade, based on specific areas, including geometry, number operations, number representation, measurement, statistics and algebra.

The fair will also feature presentations from the National Commercial Bank (NCB), Sangster’s Book Store and other partners.

Mrs. Jarrett said the fair is one of many initiatives that the school will use to improve its numeracy rate from 87 percent to 95 percent.

“Mathematics has been on the back burner for some students for a long while …so we are focusing on it, because we want to concretise the fundamentals and basic formulas,” she said.

Mrs. Jarrett informed that among other initiatives is the provision of evening classes to the parents of grade six students who are struggling with Mathematics, so they can “help the students at home, so that when they [the students] come to school they are strengthened in that area.”

A similar approach is also being taken with grade four parents, whose children are struggling with Mathematics and English.

“We think education is a triangle with the students, the parents and the school and so we are targeting the parents for them to develop more awareness of the importance of Mathematics,” she reasoned.

Another major initiative to help students to appreciate Mathematics will be the school’s Mathematics Pageant on Tuesday, May 31.

Mrs. Jarrett said the pageant will be similar to a beauty contest with talent pieces and questions. However, the focus will be on Mathematics.