Toronto, Ontario (PRWEB) September 11, 2014
Spirit of Math Schools is raising the standards in mathematics education with 1478 of their students placing on the National Honour Rolls this past school year.
Year after year, the number of students on the National Honour Roll continues to grow. This year’s honour roll placements increased by 29.3% over last year.
While North American math standards are declining, as highlighted in the 2013 OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test of 15-year-old students’ scholastic performance in mathematics, science and reading, Spirit of Math students are excelling. It is refreshing to see a program that is challenging this trend with their students moving well above the national average. The number of Spirit of Math Schools students on the National Honour Roll continues to grow annually, now with a 29.3% increase over last year’s results.
The key difference to other programs is Spirit of Math’s propriety four element system with a focus on combining skills with conceptual thinking. Because of this their students are able to reach honour roll levels without teaching to the tests.
“Students who attend Spirit of Math enter the program with the understanding that the program will be challenging, that they must keep up with the work, and that they must have at least a B+, or equivalent, to enter into the program,” says Kim Langen, Co-Founder and CEO of Spirit of Math. “Their own motivation, or the motivation of the adults around them is critical for the starting point. In addition, in order to be able to do well without studying to the test, the students have to have very strong and broad skill sets, combined with an ability to conceptualize the ideas in multiple perspectives. The result is that they are able to apply their skills to new situations. Once they have this ability, then their confidence sky-rockets, their fear of tests diminishes, and studying to the test does not need to be done. We have found that developing students with these traits requires a strong program combined with strong teaching.”
To learn about Spirit of Math Schools campuses, books and resources for educators as well as mathematics teacher training services, please visit http://www.spiritofmath.com.
About Spirit of Math Schools Inc.
Spirit of Math Schools is Canada’s answer to teacher training and math materials to complement any math curriculum. It also runs Canada’s largest after-school enrichment program exclusively for high performing students in grades 1 to 11. It is not a tutoring program, but a program developed to challenge students with an 80% or higher average. Students attend a 1½-hour class each week taught by university-educated, professional teachers throughout the school year. For more than 25 years, Spirit of Math students and alumni have been achieving outstanding results. They consistently dominate the national mathematics honor rolls of Canada and have earned scholarships to the top Universities including Harvard, MIT, Oxford and Waterloo. Spirit of Math has 39 campuses across Canada and a successful pilot location in New Jersey, USA. Visit spiritofmath.com.