Grade 6 students at St. Hedwig Catholic School in Ajax are getting extra support in mathematics this fall, as their teachers team up with a board numeracy specialist to strengthen how kids approach and solve problems.
The Durham Catholic District School Board said the initiative is part of a broader push to raise student achievement in math, with Grade 6 teachers at the Ajax school working alongside the board's Numeracy Intervention Teacher.
The classroom approach draws on the Ontario Ministry of Education's guidance document, High Impact Instructional Practices in Mathematics. That framework encourages teachers to help students stick with challenging problems rather than giving up quickly.
What's happening in the classroom
Three ideas anchor the lessons, according to the board: perseverance, what educators call "productive struggle," and the value of mistakes as part of learning.
Productive struggle means students work through problems that are genuinely difficult for them, rather than being handed an easy path to the answer. The goal is for them to sit with a hard question, test different approaches and learn that getting stuck is a normal part of mathematics, the board said.
Mistakes, meanwhile, are treated as useful rather than something to avoid. The board said instruction has been emphasizing the constructive role errors can play in the learning process.
Working together on the answers
In practice, the lessons look collaborative. The board described students working in groups to tackle a math problem, trying out a range of strategies and talking through their reasoning with classmates as they go.
Those peer conversations are a deliberate part of the method — students explain their thinking to one another, compare approaches and build on each other's ideas, the Durham Catholic District School Board said.
The partnership between classroom teachers and the numeracy specialist is ongoing, meaning the focus on problem-solving will continue as the school year progresses rather than standing as a one-off lesson.
For Ajax families with children at St. Hedwig, the approach signals a shift in how math class can look: less about racing to a single right answer, and more about the process of getting there — together, and with the confidence to try, stumble and try again.
