Maths for Reasoning Skills and Entrance Exams
The question that parents often ask me is whether the maths programme that we offer can help to prepare a child for school entrance exams. Yes, it can. Maths papers set by top schools contain many challenging and non-standard problems, which are quite different from school maths. Children that follow our program are not new to such challenges.
Selective schools design their papers to measure children’s reasoning skills, the very skills that our programme is designed to develop.
Our maths programme is based on the traditional Russian method, also known as the Elkonin-Davydov method, to honour the names of its masterminds. This method is designed to develop a solid foundation in maths and is characterised by early, “child-friendly” algebra and an abundance of problems that develop logic and mathematical reasoning. Thought not used in UK schools, our method is not a secret and there is a vast body of literature published by academics from top American universities, who have researched it in significant detail. By and large, there is a consensus that this teaching method is an educational masterpiece that works for every single child.
Another question that parents frequently ask is whether a child can get confused by following the English curriculum at school and then our programme after. Absolutely not! For a start, maths is always maths, regardless of the origin of the textbooks. Our maths programme is based on the original sources and translations done in America, bit it is also carefully adapted for use in the UK. Thus, all notations and methods of calculations are changed to those used in schools, and most word problems are also rewritten so they are more relevant and interesting. We cover virtually the same topics that children learn at school but more thoroughly and at a much deeper level.
