Mathematics Extension. Should my Child have a Go?

Your children are in Year 10 and they need to select their subjects for Year 11 (Stage 6).
This video gives some guidance on weather they should pursue the Mathematics Extension courses.

TRANSCRIPT

Good Morning! This is Jason Ursino from Learning Space and I'm driving to school.

Today, I'm going to talk about picking the extension math's subjects, so we’re talking about Extension 1 or maybe even Extension 2 in Year 12.

Now if you're a student that is pretty good with their math's and definitely is capable of doing the Advanced Mathematics course that's the 2 Unit Advanced Math's, then you have this option of perhaps pursuing the extension math's so you are at the end of year 10 and you will need to decide whether you have to do Advanced or Extension.

I would say the best thing to do is to talk to your teacher. Out of anyone besides yourself, your teacher would probably be the best person who knows your math's more than anyone else. So have a chat with your teacher.

Now, if you're a borderline student where you might be alright with Extension and you're definitely okay with Advanced, then I would say that, in my experience, in the past about say 60-70% of those sort of students end up doing the Advanced in the end anyway. So it's hard to answer for the individual case. I would say if you're still not sure, have a crack at Extension, just have a go. Main reason for that is because the Extension course is actually what the name indicates, it's an extension to the Advanced. So, if you're doing the Extension Math's and then you drop down to Advanced, it's not a big deal because you've learnt all the Advanced content anyway. As opposed to going from Advanced to Standard. Standard is a completely different course, there are some common dot-points in the syllabus but generally speaking Standard is completely different.

The other thing to consider is that Extension unit is a single unit and for that unit alone it does require a little bit of extra work so even students that are capable, in the past that I have found, they have let go of that extra unit just to free up some more time for the other subjects so even as a strategic move they let go of the extension.

So in summary, I would suggest that you do the Extension if you're on that borderline, provided you've got the units to be able to drop it afterwards anyway. So have a go at it and if you find it difficult or if you find that it’s too much work you can let go of the Extension component. You also need to consider your goals as well, if you're going to do some course at university that requires a lot of mathematics then Extension is ideal.

If you like my videos you can find more at learningspace.net.au/drivingtoschool and have a good day!