Marks in mathematics worry people, usually because of one misunderstanding: that you are marked on speed, or on being a “math person”. You are not — no such person exists.1 You are marked on reasoning, growth, and communication — things entirely inside your control. That does not change in the last mathematics course of high school, and it will not change in the first one of university.
Where evidence comes from
pie title Where evidence comes from "Tasks and performances" : 40 "Quizzes and check-ins" : 25 "Math Journal and reflection" : 20 "Number talks and class thinking" : 15
Tasks are the pages in Tasks — each lists its success criteria before you start, phrased as things an observer could see in your work, not numbers. Multiple methods welcome; a correct answer with invisible reasoning scores lower than visible reasoning with a slip in it, because Showing Your Thinking is most of the discipline. An optimization whose candidate you tested against the endpoints outranks a memorised answer — and a model whose every parameter you can defend outranks a perfect fit you cannot explain, the standard What Makes a Model Good argues for and the tasks apply.
Quizzes are short, frequent, and low-stakes — and they can be re-attempted after new learning, because the point of a quiz is to find out what to work on, not to close a book on it. There is no graded homework in this course: the nightly check-your-understanding questions are yours, so that you — not the quiz — are the first to know where you stand.
Class thinking counts because the discussion IS the mathematics: defending an estimate, questioning a step on someone’s board, building on a conjecture. Whiteboard work is group work; what I assess from it is how you contribute to thinking, never who held the marker.
Reflection is your Math Journal. It is where your growth becomes visible enough to mark fairly — often the strongest evidence you have.
Number talks and daily thinking are the small daily layer: asking the question half the room needed, catching your own error in public. Small each day, large over a term.
First attempts are never penalised
Rough work, wrong turns, and revised answers are how mathematics actually gets done. The mark follows where your understanding ends up and how visibly you got there.
If a mark ever surprises you, ask — the criteria on each task page are the whole story, and Getting Help lists the ways to reach me.
Footnotes
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Decades of research find no “math brain” — only differences in preparation, confidence, and how safe people feel making mistakes. That last one is why Our Classroom Norms exist. ↩