There is always a sense of excitement and a touch of anxiety at the start of any School year for both the girls and the staff. What will the classes be like? Who will I be able to sit with? Will I be able to manage the work? However, it doesn’t take long before everyone settles down into the rhythm of School and becomes comfortable with the daily routine.

We are now running our Mathematics classes at a steady pace with topics well underway and tests about to commence. The Year 7 girls are working through a unit on probability and learning how to use their scientific calculators. This area of Mathematics may have commenced when Renee Descartes was asked to find a way to “break the bank” at the local casino but it has developed into something we use every day when figures and statistics are quoted to us by both marketers and politicians!

Year 8 students are working through a more theoretical unit of algebra developing their index laws which are essential in Senior Mathematics. As they progress through the years they will find they are using these skills on a regular basis.

The excitement of receiving the CAS calculator was the highlight for Year 9 students. It was wonderful to see how thrilled they were to be given this extraordinary tool. Over the years the girls will be learning how to use the CAS efficiently as it is capable of solving many algebraic problems, it can work through calculus finding derivatives and antiderivatives, sketch graphs of all kinds and it also has a spreadsheet equivalent to excel. I could continue singing the wonders of the calculator but I hope your daughters will start to do this once they recognise its power.

We have had a gentle start in Year 10 Methods, working through linear relations to make sure the girls’ basic skills are sound. After the test on this topic we start our journey into more complex algebra starting with quadratics, setting the foundation for the VCE Methods course.

The Years 9 and 10 General girls are pleased that this subject allows them to use their CAS and have access to their notes for all assessments. This subject, which leads into the VCE subject Further Mathematics, is less demanding than the Methods course, with an emphasis on Statistics and Business Mathematics rather than Algebra.

VCE classes are all moving ahead at a rapid rate. The courses are all large, therefore it is important we progress steadily through the material and the girls keep asking questions to make sure they are fully on top of each topic as we proceed through the Study Design material.

The Mathematics Faculty has two new members this year and we are thrilled to welcome Mr Stephen Brown who also teaches Physics and Science, and Ms Louise Pearson who some of the girls will have met in 2017 when she undertook some relief teaching for us. They are both full of great ideas and have eased into our teaching teams perfectly.

We are all looking forward to another great year and are delighted to have the honour of watching your daughters grow in their mathematical understanding and, I hope, love for the subject.