Members of the Anglophone East Education Council got a look at the most recent numeracy report on Tuesday.
Superintendent Gregg Ingersoll says results help to identify which schools need what type of additional support.
Ingersoll says it helps the district determine what resources are needed for students and teachers in the math program in each school.
However, subject co-ordinator Heather Wood says those results could be applied better in the classroom.
“Those assessments do provide opportunities to get a snapshots of what’s going on in the classroom but they’re not always the types of questions that we’re practicing in the classroom when we’re gathering that information,” she says.
There’s also a noticeable gap in students’ success rate between English and French-immersion math programs, Ingersoll says results are higher than the previous years.
However, member Norval McConnell says while that data isn’t news to them, it may be interpreted differently by parents.
“If someone approached me […] and they were deciding what to do with their child in grade 1, they wouldn’t even make the choice based on the program they’d making it based on their best level of success in of the two programs,” he says.
Superintendant Gregg Ingersoll says while they hope altering programs will bring positive changes, McConnell agreed it can become difficult for teachers.
“Complaints that I used to get when I was still worked was that everything seemed to change every year. Seemed like every year you’d arrive in August and something new would be happening in math, ” says McConnell.
Education Minister Dominic Cardy’s green paper proposes a number of changes to the system in general, including abolishing the current and conventional grade system.
DEC members will have the opportunity to discuss this and other issues when they meet with Minister Cardy next week.
