Exam Success!!

Last Monday grade 10 finally faced the Junior Secondary Exam in Mathematics. I don’t know who was more nervous, me or my learners. Sunday evening I baked as much banana bread as I could possibly handled and added peanuts and raisins so that each learner could have at least something nutrious in their bellies before embarking upon 4 hours of sequences, trigonometry, and word problems. The bread was a hit and hopefully put the learners in a more positive mood. When everyone finished with paper 1 they came rushing to my store room with tons of questions. But rather than frowns and faces of disappointment all of the learners seemed extremely upbeat and as I walked through each problem there were a good number of cheers.

At the end of the day I talked to as many grade 10s as I could and everyone seemed to be really happy with the exam, and after looking through the test I can understand why; Term 3 was a much easier exam than Term 2. It made me so happy and proud that my learners left their math exam feeling confident. Even if they didn’t score As, Bs, or Cs, they walked away from school with their heads held hi and confident of their math skills, rather than feeling defeated by the system. And really, isn’t that what teaching is all about, making helping my learners build confidence?