Mrs. Jyothi Jose – Curriculum Leader Mathematics – Primary
Mrs. Nishrin Gilitwala – Asst. Faculty Leader Mathematics – Secondary
GEMS Cambridge
GEMS Cambridge is a large school with mixed ability students based in Dubai. Our mission is to provide quality education for our 1,000 students. However, like many schools, our challenge is how do we efficiently differentiate each child, identify learning gaps, then deliver a learning journey that caters to each and every child’s unique learning profile?
We have worked with Whizz Education for the past 10 years using the resources of the leading virtual tutoring solution, Maths-Whizz to help achieve this goal. Whizz Education has provided a scalable solution that has been implemented consistently across our classes.
At the start of each academic year, we jointly agree to a strategic implementation centred around our educational goals. I work with the Whizz Education team to roll out their suite of services to all classes from KS1 to KS3, across the 48 classes.
During the year, the Whizz Education team continuously mines the data generated each time the child interacts with the virtual tutor, then supports and advises us on improving learning outcomes, to ensure we are on target to achieve our pre-set goals.
Individualised Learning
We have found that Maths-Whizz’ ability to differentiate each child’s learning profile is vital for our teachers. It supports us with in-class teaching and then delivers an adaptive and personalised maths journey for every child. The tutor’s ability to target each child’s individual learning gaps at the right level has given children confidence in their own maths ability while also challenging our more gifted and talented students.
Maths-Whizz has been fundamental to support us with the analysis and understanding of each child’s needs — as well as their enjoyment of maths.
Reliable Data & Reporting
Every year, as part of its inspection of schools, Dubai’s regulatory body for independent schools; KHDA, requests detailed, reliable, and quantifiable information on attainment within the student body. This requires a significant investment in our time to demonstrate the success we have as a school.
The data provided by Whizz Education through Maths-Whizz, is very detailed and reliable for our management reporting and supports us for this important annual inspection.
For our teachers, the virtual tutor removes time-consuming, repetitive tasks by automating marking, planning, and data management. The virtual tutor will continually assess students’ strengths, weaknesses, attainment and progress and produce easy-to-read formative and summative reports as a by-product of learning.
The reporting center shows our teachers the topic strengths and weaknesses of their individual students and each class, enabling our teachers to take the necessary corrective steps.
Additionally, the analysis is also invaluable for our parents who are naturally motivated and keen for their children to excel. Maths-Whizz’ enables us to provide regular feedback. Importantly, parents have access to their child’s activity and reports via a parental account through which they can gauge their child’s progress. They can view the reports at any time, and then in more detail at our Parent-Teacher evenings which they greatly appreciate.
Lesson Planning
Whizz Education also provides a library of over 1250 interactive lessons to support teachers and students in the classroom. These Teachers’ Resources can be used for whole-class or small-group instruction and are a perfect complement to the virtual tutor.
Results
The impact of the Maths-Whizz virtual tutor has been particularly successful.
Our results in Maths soared since we started our partnership with Whizz Education. We can see attainment and improvement among the students who now have a solid understanding of maths through their individualised learning journey, which will equip them well when the subject becomes more complex as they get older. Next year, we are rolling out Maths-Whizz to our FS2 students.
